Is Climate Change Affecting Wolf Populations in the High Artic?

Gobal climate change may affect wolves in Canada’s High Arctic (80◦ N) acting through three trophic levels (vegetation, herbivores, and wolves). A wolf pack dependent on muskoxen and arctic hares in the Eureka area of Ellesmere Island denned and produced pups most years from at least 1986 throug...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Mech, L. David
Format: Text
Language:unknown
Published: DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln 2004
Subjects:
Other International and Area Studies
Climate change
Ellesmere Island
muskox
Online Access:https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/usgsnpwrc/71
https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/context/usgsnpwrc/article/1082/viewcontent/Mech_CC_2004_Is_climate_change_affecting.pdf
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Summary:Gobal climate change may affect wolves in Canada’s High Arctic (80◦ N) acting through three trophic levels (vegetation, herbivores, and wolves). A wolf pack dependent on muskoxen and arctic hares in the Eureka area of Ellesmere Island denned and produced pups most years from at least 1986 through 1997. However, when summer snow covered vegetation in 1997 and 2000 for the first time since records were kept, halving the herbivore nutrition-replenishment period, muskox and hare numbers dropped drastically, and the area stopped supporting denning wolves through 2003. The unusual weather triggering these events was consistent with global-climate-change phenomena.

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