Scientists from the A.N. Severtsov Institute of Ecology and Evolution of the Russian Academy of Sciences have begun studying the wolves of the Magadan Region. A wolf specialist, senior research fellow at the Institute, Jose Antonio Hernandez-Blanco, with the help of Igor Dontsov, a deputy of the Magadan Regional Duma, put GPS collars on wolves and representatives of various species of ungulates. In Magadan, he also gave his recommendations to reindeer herders who complain of predator attacks. Wolves, says Jose Antonio Hernandez-Blanco, are very complex animals, and the solution to problems associated with them demands a scientific approach. The scientist gave a large exclusive interview to Magadan's Vesti.
Lyudmila Shcherbakova, journalist: Jose, hello. Let's start with your report at the scientific forum in Magadan. Spatial ecology of reindeer, elk, snow sheep and wolf. What is it about?
Jose Antonio Hernandez-Blanco, Senior Researcher, A.N. Severtsov Institute of Ecology and Evolution, Russian Academy of Sciences: This is mainly within the framework of our research in Russia, in different natural habitats, in different biotopes. The question arose about the fact that we know how the social structure of the wolf is organized, we know how the nature of space use is organized, that this is a spatial ecology, but we know this very well for forest habitats, for the plain, for the European part. When we began working in the North-West Caspian region, in the steppe, we observed a very interesting variation of this picture. It had a kind of explanation, as an adaptation to life in open spaces, where there is only one main species, in this case, the saiga. True, what is, as they say, what came first, the chicken or the egg, what is the egg or the chicken in this case, this social structure of the wolf, the picture that we see in the steppes, or the picture that we see in the forest, is still an open question. But you immediately had a question about how all this happens in northern habitats, for example, the Kolyma Highlands, where we have mountain forest-tundra, and there are completely different conditions. Firstly, these are huge expanses, these are very difficult conditions that require adaptation to low temperatures, to the aggregation of potential prey species, respectively, these potential prey are very difficult to access, because getting, for example, a snow sheep there is a serious task for a wolf. Huge potential prey, for example, such as elk, but elk in the European part and Kolyma elk are completely different animals, yes, that is, it is practically not an easy task. And this is, in fact, the first results that we received. It is clear that the research conditions are much more difficult here. If, for example, in the Kaluga region we can move from the swamp on ATVs, we have easy access to almost all places, comfortable winter temperatures. Of course, it sometimes drops to minus 35, but this is rare. As a rule, it stays within 20 degrees below zero. There we have a large network of camera traps, we use different methods. And it is not easy to repeat this research scheme here, but we have an opportunity and interested people, in the form of Igor Borisovich Dontsov, many thanks to him for understanding that it is possible, in fact, to do a very good study, firstly, it is good for the region, because they will study their native region, secondly, this is high-quality work, I would say, at the level of all the best world studies, but on the territory of Russia. Therefore, for this we need to install collars, since we compare the interaction between different packs, between different families, and wolves live in families, so we need to hang satellite GPS collars on individuals of different families and on several individuals of potential prey of these wolves to see how they use the space, how they move. There is often a mistaken opinion that they migrate - they do not, almost all of them live quite sedentary in their habitats. And so they interact with each other. It should be said that in our works we have destroyed one of such widespread myths that there is a certain resource, for example, a victim, and a wolf is a predator, if the resource moves, the wolf goes after it. In fact, all this is very simple, wolves are packed into space, into families, just like people in apartments, each with their own plot, or there, for example, at the dacha. But if we can go to visit a neighbor, and most likely, if we behave politely, he will not drive us away, for a wolf to come to someone else's plot is quite life-threatening. A predator always avoids conflict. All this demonstration of aggression is nothing more than a demonstration, it is just waving fists. Because if a predator gets injured, it won't be able to hunt. That's why the mechanisms of preserving the territory, marking the territory, designating itself, hence the howl, are constantly working towards this same goal. Howling is consolidation of the group, it's the same as when we sing at feasts and show that we are friends, that we communicate well with each other, that we are comfortable. The wolf is the same. The wolf howls. Wonderful. This is a chorus, this is a howl, they indicate their presence, their strength to their neighbors. There are even studies that show that they often howl synchronously, that they howl and respond, and respond again. Yesterday we showed that a pack of wolves hunts on average in the conditions of Kolyma once every 8 days. It's nonsense when we hear that a wolf consumes 5 kilograms of meat every day, it's nonsense, it's absolute nonsense. Otherwise, no population of ungulates would withstand this pressure. They would run out, undermine their resource, and then they themselves would be destroyed. Some say that my dog has three meals a day, Monday, Wednesday, Friday, but the wolf is even worse. But in general, predators rarely have successful prey. For example, tigers have somewhere in the middle, somewhere around 8-10 days, leopards, we have work on leopards in the Caucasus and the Far East, too, we have shown that it is about 8-10 days. In fact, this is a certain process of influence, a certain career, a certain race of ungulates to avoid a predator, and predators to successfully get an ungulate, and there is influence both on each other and among themselves. There are studies that have shown that when tigers, for example, attack livestock, their cortisol level is very high - these are stress hormones. And what is a high stress level? This means that this is the price of this high stress, this is a lower level of immunity. That's why everything in nature has a price. Nothing is ever free, including cheese in a mousetrap. That's why for a wolf, if he can hunt wild prey, he will avoid hunting domestic prey. When he has no wild prey left, he switches to domestic prey, because he still wants to live.
Lyudmila Shcherbakova: In this regard, can I ask a question? Our reindeer herders say that it is supposedly wolves that largely exterminate the reindeer population, and that this is the reason why our reindeer herding industry is not developing. Could this really be so, or are they exaggerating?
Jose Antonio Hernandez-Blanco: Of course, if there is a resource, the predator will try to use it. It all depends on the price it has for using this resource. It also depends on the food tradition. Wolves have traditions. Wolves actually have a culture that is passed down from generation to generation. Sometimes it even seems surprising. For example, there are wolves that can hunt elk together, for example, in Belarus. There are wolves, for example, in Tigrovaya Valka, that hunt large wild boars. Because they have learned to do it, they are good at it. It is precisely this tradition that is the issue. If there is an available wild prey, a wild species, they will use it. If it is in large numbers... you see, it becomes very difficult for a wolf that hunts wild deer. It has a strategy to hunt wild deer. If a domestic one appears, which is easier to hunt, it is clear that it will try to hunt it.
Lyudmila Shcherbakova: But in connection with this, I know that you are against any kind of wolf shooting, is it because, as I understand it, this does not solve the problem?
Jose Antonio Hernandez-Blanco: Yes, that's not exactly what I'm saying, the wolf problem is conflict situations, also a conflict between humans and wolves, it only has a scientific solution, and shooting wolves, as a rule, is a disservice, it only makes the situation worse, you can shoot wisely, without destroying the population structure, but this is only shooting young animals, that is, individuals that are not yet adults, that are older than one year. As a rule, this is a kind of exchange coin of the population, the violation of which does not greatly disrupt the structure. The main thing is that adults are not touched, because if you imagine in a city, you remove adults, leaving only young people, most likely, you will get punks, most likely, you will just have a mess. If you have a normal structured population of wolves, where it is clearly distributed, you kill the most beautiful, large adults, as a result, a race begins for the rights of who will win. And, as a rule, this structure will be broken, and there will be more pressure on ungulates, more pressure on livestock. That is, on the contrary, you will spoil the situation. I can give another example that very well illustrates how complicated it all is. For example, when you have two neighboring packs, there is a certain overlapping area. We have already understood that the conflict between the packs is very acute, so they try not to attack each other. In the conditions of the northwestern Caspian region, it turned out that where neighboring packs are adjacent, in the overlapping area, this is called the buffer zone, the probability that a wolf will attack a saiga is very small, because they do not want to conflict with their neighbors. And it so happened that it is there, in this part, that calving occurs. Because it so happened historically that where at these junctions, wolves will not attack these saigas, or will attack to a lesser extent. Just imagine, if you go and kill wolves now, you will hardly be able to equally, let's say, reduce their numbers. Most likely, it will be a random process. You met a group, and you just shot it. Just imagine what will happen if you left some neighbors, almost 2-3 individuals, but the others will have a full-fledged pack. So they will simply understand that they have no conflict, that they can develop a new area, appropriate a new area. And they will also influence the saiga, and the influence of the saiga will be greater than before, when there were more wolves. That is, it is a complex balance that is very easy to upset. The same thing happens with dogs, with the attitude of wolves to dogs. If you reduce the number of wolves, at a certain level of population density, the wolf attacks and eats stray dogs. But if the number of wolves is very low, when wolves are dispersed, the probability that a wolf will still mate with a dog will be very high, the probability of hybrids will be very high. Hybrids are scary. Firstly, they are not afraid of people, secondly, they have completely different rules of the game from wolves, that is, the pressure on livestock will be greater, the pressure on hunting resources will be greater and most importantly, they will be able to enter the village, this becomes dangerous for people, because in most cases we have wolf attacks in villages, and, as a rule, it is found out at the end that these are hybrid individuals. And in the end, we have a deplorable result. We did not solve the problem, but aggravated it, and we lost the wolf as a species in that zone.
Lyudmila Shcherbakova: Have you met with our reindeer herders and given them some advice on how to behave with wolves, what exactly?
Jose Antonio Hernandez-Blanco: Yesterday we had people who are engaged in deer, domestic reindeer herding. They were interested in these scientific issues, problems. Not just solving them on their own, but consulting with experts. I am saying that one of the most effective solutions for regulating wolf numbers, I have not come up with anything new. Firstly, it is avoiding wolf attacks on deer using the Bologov method. That is, when a wolf is a neophobe, you can avoid attacks on wolves, but flags are also used when hunting. You can also use different objects to protect the appearance of wolves in certain areas. But you need to understand that this needs to be changed often. It often happens in the forest that you want wolves not to approach a certain place, you hang a dirty frying pan, a rag, a balloon, a flag, a quilted jacket there, but you need to change it at least once every 2 weeks, otherwise the wolf will simply get used to it. When a wolf sees this object, it is wary and does not approach. The same is true with flags. If you hang hunting flags, your young ones will not pass. But if you leave them, in 2 weeks they will simply get used to it and pass by. This is the first thing. But this does not work for open habitats. Because when a wolf sees this dangerous object from afar, it gets used to it faster. If we have open habitats, this task is more difficult to accomplish. The second thing that is very important is to regulate the wolf population so that it does not disrupt the population structure. How is this possible? Find a den and remove a certain number of individuals from the litter. Because otherwise, if you shoot wolves, firstly, you disrupt this structure, secondly, the wolf's response will be unexpected. The wolf is capable. With a normal population structure, wolves now reproduce only at 16% of their potential. If a wolf senses danger to the population's existence, it increases productivity. This is to the detriment of females and so on, but it can do it, there are enough resources. Therefore, as they say, you wanted to kill one wolf, and five appeared, that's one. Secondly, another thing that is even difficult to understand, when the population structure is disrupted, for example, the wolf, the settling sex, these are females, as a rule, the probability that the male remains in the composition is very high, and the females disperse. As a rule, you have a one-to-one sex ratio in a litter. If there is pressure from humans, the proportion of females increases. That is, for example, we see in the Caspian region, when shepherds on motorcycles chase wolves, and they are very easy to kill. The answer is not 4, not 5 wolf cubs in a litter, but 12, of which 10 are females. The probability that at 9 months they are already getting stronger and more robust, and spreading out, that they shoot, and that they reproduce to support this population size, is very high. Therefore, this is what the shepherds say, that there is a lot of mysticism here. It is as if we kill them, they take revenge. It is as if we kill them, and their number increases. Yes, there is a scientific explanation for this process. The wolf is one of the main species of fauna in the country. And the problem associated with this species has only a scientific solution.
Lyudmila Shcherbakova: Thank you very much.