Written by Associated Press on May 25, 2021
WASHINGTON (AP) Ecologist Rolf Peterson remembers driving remote stretches of road in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula and seeing areas strewn with deer carcasses. But that changed after gray wolves arrived in the region from Canada and Minnesota.
“When wolves moved in during the 1990s and 2000s, the deer-vehicle collisions went way down,” said the Michigan Tech researcher.
Recently, another team of scientists has gathered data about road collisions and wolf movements in Wisconsin to quantify how the arrival wolves there affected the frequency of deer-auto collisions. They found it created what scientists call “a landscape of fear.”
Wolves scare deer and reduce auto collisions 24%, study says
The researchers looked at data from Wisconsin and said that wolves reduce deer populations and also scare deer away from linear landscape features. Author: Associated Press Updated: 9:58 PM EDT May 24, 2021
Ecologist Rolf Peterson remembers driving remote stretches of road in Michigan s Upper Peninsula and seeing areas strewn with deer carcasses. But that changed after gray wolves arrived in the region from Canada and Minnesota. When wolves moved in during the 1990s and 2000s, the deer-vehicle collisions went way down, said the Michigan Tech researcher.
Recently, another team of scientists has gathered data about road collisions and wolf movements in Wisconsin to quantify how the arrival wolves there affected the frequency of deer-auto collisions. They found it created what scientists call a landscape of fear.
Gray wolves scare deer and reduce auto crashes 24%, study says
Christina Larson
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WASHINGTON Ecologist Rolf Peterson remembers driving remote stretches of road in Michigan s Upper Peninsula and seeing areas strewn with deer carcasses. But that changed after gray wolves arrived in the region from Canada and Minnesota. When wolves moved in during the 1990s and 2000s, the deer-vehicle collisions went way down, said the Michigan Tech researcher.
Recently, another team of scientists has gathered data about road collisions and wolf movements in Wisconsin to quantify how the arrival wolves there affected the frequency of deer-auto collisions. They found it created what scientists call a landscape of fear.
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WASHINGTON - Ecologist Rolf Peterson remembers driving remote stretches of road in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula and seeing areas strewn with deer carcasses. But that changed after gray wolves arrived in the region from Canada and Minnesota.
“When wolves moved in during the 1990s and 2000s, the deer-vehicle collisions went way down,” said the Michigan Tech researcher.
Recently, another team of scientists has gathered data about road collisions and wolf movements in Wisconsin to quantify how the arrival wolves there affected the frequency of deer-auto collisions. They found it created what scientists call “a landscape of fear.”
“In a pretty short period of time, once wolves colonize a county, deer vehicle collisions go down about 24%,” said Dominic Parker, a natural resources economist at the University of Wisconsin, Madison and co-author of their new study published Monday in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.