Wolves on the prowl this month at the ELC
Nov. 30—OSKALOOSA — Mahaska County residents have the opportunity to explore their wild side this December thanks to a new Wolves in the Wildlands exhibit featured at the Environmental Learning Center.
The traveling exhibit comes from the International Wolf Center near Ely, Minnesota and has been touring various counties in Iowa including. Before arriving in Mahaska County, it was on display in Sioux County. Featuring taxidermy specimens of five different wolf species and a coyote, the display shows just what these apex predators that used to roam the continent look like in the flesh.
Iowa was once home to both Eastern Timber Wolves and Great Plains Wolves. They were considered varmints and were routinely shot, trapped or poisoned by settlers, according to material from the ELC. Today there is no wolf population left in Iowa, thanks to human settlement and hunting. The exhibit, which will be open Friday, Dec. 1 through Friday, Dec. 29, focuses on the history of wolves over time and the problems related to their coexistence with humans into the 21st century.
"[The exhibit] gives us an opportunity to kind of let people know there were once wolves here in Iowa, and there's no longer wolves here because we've pretty much hunted and trapped them out, and then removed their food sources, where [are] elk, and bison, and even deer," says Mahaska County Conservation Director Chris Clingan. "Back in the late 1800s, pretty much everything was killed off, extirpated from the state, so the wolves, naturally, weren't here because there was nothing for them to survive off of."
"The Iowa Fourier Phalanx," an article by Phillip D Jordan originally published in the Palimpsest and reprinted in the Oskaloosa Herald on July 28, 1936, mentions a settler named E.A. Boyer who shot 93 wolves near his cabin about nine miles from Oskaloosa during the winter of 1843-1844.
The removal of wolves from their natural habitats does not come without consequence.
"In Iowa, it's not something we think about a lot, but in the northwest, where they have wolves and ranchers, it's like us and coyotes here. We don't want the coyotes. Ranchers don't like wolves around because they could eat their livestock. But how can they coexist? Because it's shown that the wolves, as a top predator, are a very important element to any ecosystem they live in. It balances. Without a top predator, other wildlife become more abundant," says ELC Naturalist Laura DeCook.
That increased abundance of other wildlife that would otherwise be the prey of wolves can cause all sorts of environmental havoc, affecting everything from ecosystem balance to water quality for human communities.
The exhibit's time in Mahaska County has been funded by Friends of Mahaska County Conservation. In addition to the taxidermy displays and signs, the exhibit will include an informational video that visitors can watch. It will be available to visit whenever the ELC is open. The ELC is open from 12:30 to 4:30 p.m. on Monday and Tuesday, 12:30 to 8 p.m. on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, and 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Saturday.
Channing Rucks can be reached at crucks@oskyherald.com.
