THIRD PLACE : EASTERN

Bringing Back the Eastern Wolf By Dylan Evans

Imagine the lush, green forests of Algonquin Park. The large trees sway in the breeze, and the sound of a river can be heard. Then, amongst the sounds of wildlife, a lone howl can be heard as an Eastern Wolf alerts others of its kind to its location. Once an apex predator in the forests of Southern and , these have faced severe habitat loss at the hands of humans, and as a result, only 1,000 remain in Ontario today. To combat this, the Earth Rangers Bring Back the Wild project hopes to improve conservation efforts towards the Eastern Wolf.

The Eastern Wolf, also known by its scientific name, , is a species of Wolf native to parts of Southern Ontario and Quebec. Typically, they are a mix of reddish-brown, black, and greyish- white in color, and are fairly small in size compared to other species of wolf, such as the Grey Wolf. The Eastern Wolf is considered to be a sub-species of the Grey Wolf, but this has not been 100% confirmed. While the Eastern Wolf can be found mainly in areas of Central Ontario and South-Western Quebec, the largest population today resides in Algonquin Park, ON. This is because their main habitat is large forests. The forests must be large, such as Algonquin Park, as the wolves require huge amounts of space to move around (up to 500km²). Unfortunately, by the 1940's, the Eastern Wolf was nearly wiped out, mainly due to issues such as habitat loss from deforestation, and hybridization. Hybridization is the process of cross-species breeding, which produces a offspring. Due to their small size, the Eastern Wolf faces population issues due to hybridization with .

Today, the Earth Rangers, a conservationist organization devoted to helping Canadian , are working to counter-act the effects of habitat loss for the Eastern Wolf through a number of methods. These include helping to protect the wolves, identifying movement patterns and habitat locations, and determining the size of the population in Algonquin Park and comparing it to other periods in time. In order to achieve these goals, the Earth Rangers primarily use a mix of GPS and radio collars to track the Eastern Wolves in Algonquin Park, as well as in another large population located in Queen Elizabeth II Wildlands, ON. These collars give the specialists at Earth Rangers access to information such as territory size, movement patterns, and hunting behavior of the wolves. Of course, as conservationists, the Earth Rangers care deeply about the well- being of the wolves, so the GPS and radio collars are totally harmless, like any regular 2 pet collar. Over the course of the project, the Earth Rangers will also be performing tests on the wolves to determine whether or not hybridization will have long-term health effects on the Eastern Wolf population.

Despite the best efforts of the Earth Rangers to aid the Eastern Wolf population, more work is needed. Algonquin Park is very large, and attaching collars or performing tests on the wolves requires a large amount of time and effort, and is therefore very costly. This is where the Bring Back the Wild project comes in. By helping to fundraise money, children of all ages across Canada can be a part of protecting and aiding the Eastern Wolf. Money raised by children who fundraise in support of the Earth Rangers will be put towards purchasing more GPS collars and attaching them to the wolves, making every child's contribution a part of protecting a majestic creature.