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Wildlife officials prepare bienniel wolf census

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On Tuesday, staffers with the Michigan Department of Natural Resources will meet to discuss the upcoming census of the wolf population in the Upper Peninsula.

Every two years, state wildlife officers comb through the UP looking for wolves.

Cody Norton is a large-carnivore specialist with the DNR.

He expects this year’s census will find a number of wolves similar to the 662 they counted a couple of years ago.

“The UP is mostly saturated.  We’ve got wolves where there’s good wolf habitat.  So they probably not going to increase a whole lot more.”

Wolves tend to avoid humans. So the census is more of an estimate than an exactly accurate count. 

Steve Carmody has been a reporter for Michigan Public since 2005.