er.
The populations of these large hoofed animals determine where a wolf pack can exist. The hunting habits of the pack are dependant on the type of prey available. In the areas of Wisconsin, Michigan, and Minnesota, where the wolf preys on white-tailed deer, the hunting strategy for the summer when the animals are scattered is for the pack to hunt singly or in pairs (11:6). This strategy increases the chances for the pack to have a successful kill to eat. In the winter, the deer congregate in local deer yards with their fawns to find protection from the winter storms and forage. At these times, the pack hunts together. The majority of the deer taken are bucks, fawns and older deer (11:6).
The impact of a wolf pack on the local deer population is the third leading cause of mortality. Death from wolves follows death at human hands, legally hunted and poached, and severe weather. Where the wolf hunts for moose, the population appears to be more impacted by changes in vegetation growth than by predation by the wolves (11:7). In more recent research, this result is called into question (5:1557). The wolf's place in controlling and regulating the number of older moose and therefore the birth rates of moose has been shown to indirectly control the level of deforestation by the moose population. Larger numbers of moose mean greater deforestation and less vegetation, and then the wolves are able to kill greater numbers of moose as well as the moose's reproductive rate drops. More studies need to be completed on both the moose and wolf populations jointly to confirm the causality. Both the number of predatory wolves and the population of their prey influence each other to arrive at an equilibrium.
Debate is constant and in both directions on whether there should be any hunting and killing of wolves. This includes the hunting of wolves in Alaska, where the wolf is not endangered. The wolves in Alaska prey on the same ...