Yellowstone wolves get $1.4 million pledge
Donation helps wolf research
By MIKE STARK
Of The Gazette Staff
Wolf research in Yellowstone National Park will get a $1.4 million boost in the coming years.
An anonymous donor in Colorado has pledged to give $140,000 a year for the next 10 years to track and better understand the park's wolves, the Yellowstone Park Foundation announced Monday.
The National Park Service's Yellowstone Wolf Project will get about $100,000 a year and wolf researchers from the University of Minnesota will get the remaining $40,000.
The Yellowstone Park Foundation, a nonprofit group based in Bozeman, has typically provided about $150,000 in private donations for the Yellowstone Wolf Project each year to add to funding from the Park Service.
In recent years, private donations have made up a majority of the funding for the project, which provides short-term and long-term research on Yellowstone's wolves and how they're affecting and being affected by other animals and the landscape.
The money will go toward radio tracking equipment, flight time, data analysis and other research costs. Specific projects will include looking at how wolves interact with scavengers and other predators and generating genetic profiles to determine patterns in how wolves reproduce and move in and out of Yellowstone.
Wolves were reintroduced in the park 10 years ago. Today, there are an estimated 118 wolves in the park.
Foundation officials said the success of the wolf program brings new challenges for land managers and biologists.
"Research and monitoring of the wolves in Yellowstone is needed now as much as ever, as good science informs good management," Michael Cary, director of the Yellowstone Park Foundation, said in a statement.
At the University of Minnesota, the donation will fund research for graduate students working with David Mech, a longtime wolf researcher and a senior scientist with the U.S. Geological Survey.
"The great value of these research programs is in their long-term continuity," Mech said in a statement.
Although the $1.4 million donation is the largest ever received by the Yellowstone Park Foundation for the wolf project, the group will continue to seek support for wolf research, organizers said.
About $50,000 more will still be needed each year to match what the nonprofit has typically given for wolf research.
Billings Montana Gazette
By MIKE STARK
Of The Gazette Staff
Wolf research in Yellowstone National Park will get a $1.4 million boost in the coming years.
An anonymous donor in Colorado has pledged to give $140,000 a year for the next 10 years to track and better understand the park's wolves, the Yellowstone Park Foundation announced Monday.
The National Park Service's Yellowstone Wolf Project will get about $100,000 a year and wolf researchers from the University of Minnesota will get the remaining $40,000.
The Yellowstone Park Foundation, a nonprofit group based in Bozeman, has typically provided about $150,000 in private donations for the Yellowstone Wolf Project each year to add to funding from the Park Service.
In recent years, private donations have made up a majority of the funding for the project, which provides short-term and long-term research on Yellowstone's wolves and how they're affecting and being affected by other animals and the landscape.
The money will go toward radio tracking equipment, flight time, data analysis and other research costs. Specific projects will include looking at how wolves interact with scavengers and other predators and generating genetic profiles to determine patterns in how wolves reproduce and move in and out of Yellowstone.
Wolves were reintroduced in the park 10 years ago. Today, there are an estimated 118 wolves in the park.
Foundation officials said the success of the wolf program brings new challenges for land managers and biologists.
"Research and monitoring of the wolves in Yellowstone is needed now as much as ever, as good science informs good management," Michael Cary, director of the Yellowstone Park Foundation, said in a statement.
At the University of Minnesota, the donation will fund research for graduate students working with David Mech, a longtime wolf researcher and a senior scientist with the U.S. Geological Survey.
"The great value of these research programs is in their long-term continuity," Mech said in a statement.
Although the $1.4 million donation is the largest ever received by the Yellowstone Park Foundation for the wolf project, the group will continue to seek support for wolf research, organizers said.
About $50,000 more will still be needed each year to match what the nonprofit has typically given for wolf research.
posted by wolf saga at 9:31 AM
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