Cree
& The History of the Adirondack Wildlife Refuge As we said goodbye to our wolf pack leader, Cree on April 5th, 2020, it occured to us that his history is pretty much the history of the Adirondack Wildlife Refuge. Cree was born in early May of 2006, and came to us about a month later on June 9th, a wolf hybrid pup of 75% gray wolf and 25% malamute. There had been a 2 year stretch since we last had wolves, and Cree lived with two adopted mutt brothers, Roscoe and Sammy, who were about 3 years old, and an older Pug named Rosie, who actually served as Cree’s surrogate mother. We’ve owned the 60 acres which became the
Adirondack Wildlife
Refuge since January 2000, and lived up
here since October 2002. The only structure on the property when we
moved up here was the
house we
live in, Ausable Lodge, above, and our only dog was a wolf hybrid named
Chino, who had returned from Alaska with us in 1990.
We adopted Cree in 2006. Cree lived a fun
filled, rough and tumble
life with Roscoe
and Sammy, who weighed about 60 pounds each, and even as a small pup,
Cree never
hesitated to scrap with the much larger brothers, as well as with our
two female
cats, Ruthie and Creamcheese, both of whom delighted in baiting and
tormenting
the hapless canids. Rosie the pug was always a close companion of
Cree’s and
seemed to mother him, but also never took any nonsense from him,
barking and
snapping at him when he’d bat her small pudgy body around. Wolves are pretty much full grown within 9
months, as
mammals are born in the Spring and better not be small when Winter
returns, and
Cree quickly outgrew his companions, and their roles reversed with Cree
physically
dominating the brothers, who grew to resent Cree’s ascendency. Cree, in
turn,
resented their unwillingness, with their roles reversed, to play rough,
and
when Cree was about six months old, it became clear, with deer,
porcupine and
coywolves fairly common on the property, he’d need his own enclosure. He lived outside with Sammy for a few years,
and as he
became more acclimated to the sounds and smells of the Adirondacks, he
became more
reluctant to come inside the house. At the same time, it grew
increasingly
clear that he needed a companion to share his time and enclosure with.
Sammie was worn out with having to live with the rough play of a wolf,
and Cree had
made friends with a raven we called
Abie, who had come to us for rehab,
and was
in an enclosure near Cree’s, and we discovered them hanging out,
performing
duets with Cree howling and Abie doing those wonderfully diverse
chortles
ravens do. In June 2009, we adopted four week old
Zeebie, a pure gray
wolf pup. Cree quickly fell into the role of surrogate father, but as
he
experienced what it was like for him to raise a wolf pup, he became
much less aggressive
in his play, and more protective of Zeebie, like going from being a
carefree teen to a Dad with responsibilities. Wendy and Alex and I were always exploring and hiking all over the property every day, and first Cree, Rosie, Roscoe and Sammy, and later Cree and Zeebie would accompany us. Photographer friends as well as visitors to the Refuge, would accompany us on what came to be called the “Wolf Walk”, and a tradition was born. Kiska, a young female wolf and the only survivor of a litter of five wolf pups, joined us in 2014, and the Wolf Walk, visitors following us with the wolves, who were on long chains, through the woods and meadows, and along the sloughs, became too popular and too crowded, and the DEC expressed their unease with visitors walking with wolves. Meanwhile, Wendy was becoming more and more
involved in rehabbing
of wildlife, something which started out as a weekend hobby 35 years
before.
When you rehab wildlife, anywhere from 50 to 60% will recover and end
up going
back into their habitats. Maybe half of the remainder will die, and the
other
half will survive if we feed them, but their days of making a living in
nature
are basically over. This last group, of course, become the ambassador
mammals
and raptors visitors to the Wildlife Refuge get to view and learn
about. There is important information, and many lessons learned from
this
process, and we built a dedicated cabin for Rehab, above. The wolves and bears are captive bred
animals, who aid us in
teaching visitors about how nature works, wolves because they are what
are
called keystone predators,
heavily involved in helping to maintain the balance
of nature, and the bears because they are indicator
species, whose health, knowing what they eat, teaches us about what
is working in their habitats and what is not. We've rehabbed and released wild bears for about 8 years, working with the NY Department of Environmental Conservation. We fix 'em, and they help us release them. Our most famous bear release was Barnabelle Bear, shown before and after in the 3 photos above to the right, who not only survived a terrible case of starvation and mange, but recovered enough to give birth to two cubs in January about four years ago. Bear sows have an interesting feature called delayed implantation, where they mate in the Summer, but don't get pregnant until November, and Barnabelle was released with her cubs the following May. We never let visitors meet wild bears, yet bears are a great introduction to how nature works, as they are an indicator species, meaning their challenges surviving often tell us what's lacking in their habitats. The green Bear Rehab building on the left is where we rehab bears, and that's off limits to visitors.
Sylvia, above, one of our flightless bald eagles became key to Adirondack
Wildlife
Inc. becoming a non-profit, as U.S. Fish and Wildlife wouldn’t allow us
to house eagles or use them for
education purposes without becoming a non-profit. Adirondack Wildlife
is actually two organizations. Adirondack Wildlife Inc. is the 501c3
non-profit. Adirondack Wildlife Refuge LLC is the "contractor" who does
all the Rehab, Education, etc., and which turns over all donations to
the non-profit. We had to set up this way, as everything the Refuge
does is carried out on land owned by Wendy and Steve, which, if we were
also
the non-profit, would be a conflict of interest violation in the eyes
of the IRS. This is why when you make a donation to Adirondack
Wildlife, the acknowledging receipt comes from Adirondack Wildlife Inc. Anyway, after months of work by board
members and employees, and several go rounds with the IRS, we earned
our
non-profit status effective August 6th, 2010, and there has
been
incredible growth at the Refuge since then. Recall that we are a tiny
organization on a shoestring budget, lacking the millions of dollars in
grants
that larger orgs like zoos routinely garner. 80 to 90% of our income
still comes
from visitors making donations, so like all small companies struggling
during
the pandemic, it’s tough to make payroll. Back to the wolves, we could see plainly that the wolves required a larger enclosure, which would allow us to do educational presentations for the much larger groups that were showing up to see the wolves and other animals. One of our former board members secured a grant from a family fund to build the new wolf enclosure, and the South Burlington Big Picture High School volunteered about twenty teachers and students (above) to stay with us for several days, helping us build the new enclosure, even returning in Spring of 2019 to help us renovate the newer black bear enclosure. The idea of the wolves living up in their
new, larger
enclosure without human supervision and protection, seemed like a bad
idea, as in the evening, while we're sleeping at Ausable Lodge on the
river, 1/4 mile further down the driveway, anyone could drive down to
the Public Fishing Access easement parking lot on our property. The
fact that the wolves often howl in response to smells, sounds or sights
in their habitat, or because they just feel the urge, sometimes draws
curious travelers. To protect the wolves, we decided to install a
pre-built, one
room log cabin to serve as a place for an employee to spend the night,
and later added a tool barn, which also included freezer and
refrigerator for wolf and bear food. The "Public Fishing Access"
has
caused us some amount of confusion and conflict, as now and then, we
get a visitor who mistakenly believes the easement makes the Refuge
state owned
land, while the easement legally pertains only for licensed fishermen
to access the trail down to the Ausable River, which is on our land,
and for which we reive no payment from New York State or the DEC. Today, there are two miles of cobwebbed trails traversing the north
half of the Refuge, bringing Refuge visitors hiking access to meadows,
sloughs, bogs and the Ausable River. Snowshoeing and cross country
skiing on the frozen Ausable River
is a fun activity in Winter. Some hikers get lucky and see moose, black
bear,
beaver, porcupine, weasels, raptors and coywolf. Not to worry, the wild
bears and coywolves you could see at the Refuge fear people because,
while hunting is not permitted on Refuge Property, bears and coywolves
fear people because of
the hunting seasons, and the weapon of choice is the camera, but you
better be quick as these animals flee. The few moose sightings were in
the moose slough, and as long as you don't approach, moose tend to keep
browsing, and occasionally just look at you.
One of the most interesting things you
discover when working
with higher mammals like wolves and bears is that they’re exactly like
people
in the sense that they all have unique personalities, complete with
different
likes and dislikes, and different skills and liabilities. Cree raised
Zeebie as
though he was Zeebies’ alpha male, which can be another name for “Dad”
in a
wolf pack, and Zeebie in turn raised Kiska (above), a good thing, as
Cree has never
particularly liked Kiska, a complicated wolf who is harder to work
with. At the
same time, key handlers like myself, Alex, Hanna, Mike and John, spent
a great
deal of time with the wolves since they were days old, allowing the
wolves to
imprint on us and learn to trust us, important considerations when
working with
large animals which could conceivably hurt you. It’s a system that works, as in 30 years of
working with
wolves and wolf hybrids, we’ve never suffered any injuries or dangerous
confrontations. Cree, Zeebie and Kiska behaved very much like a small
pack,
with their handlers being alphas when they are present. By two years ago, Cree was showing signs of
arthritis, and we
were seeing some bullying by the younger wolves. Cree had dominated the
younger
wolves for years without being obnoxious about it, and often, when the
younger wolves wanted to rough house or steal food etc., Cree would
bare his
teeth and give a low growl which was persuasive enough to get the
younger
wolves to back down. On the one hand, there are great
similarities between the
structure of a human family and a wolf pack. My book, “Wolves,
Humans,
Dogs and
Civilization”, argues that creating dogs out of those wolves,
probably
omega
wolves who found it easier to make a living by hanging around our
ancestors camp
fires and stealing food from us, to such an extent that for three
quarters of
our history with so-called “dogs”, they were just gray wolves. During the Agricultural revolution, which
began roughly
fifteen to ten thousand years ago, we switched from being wandering
nomads and
became more tied to the land, our lives becoming much more complicated,
and
that meant not only did people have to learn new tricks, so did our
wolves, and
we began breeding wolves with specific skills to help us in our new
roles as farmers
and livestock keepers, and just as working with wolves gave homo
sapiens a huge
advantage over other humans who basically went extinct 30,000 years
ago, during
the Agricultural Revolution, tamed and trained wolves enabled humans to
dominate
and control other animals, and ultimately, dangerously today, nature
itself. On
the other hand, family politics in a wolf pack are a lot less subtle,
and when
you’re an alpha, there are times when you need to remind other pack
members who
the decision maker is, and who’s in charge, and that usually works. The problem we faced with the three wolves
was this: we
always considered Zeebie our “wildest” wolf, slow to trust you and more
anxious
to maintain his distance. Cree, on the other hand, was like everyone’s
favorite
uncle, more accepting of other people, and uniformly pleasant and
affectionate.
Cree was always the town crier, alerting the other two wolves to the
presence
of dogs or other wildlife, by beginnng and ending howling, which is
just more
language. With Cree’s gradual descent into old age, we thought Zeebie
might try
to take over, but Zeebie is not a leader, and Kiska has figured out how
to
dominate Zeebie when there is something important at stake, such as
access to food. What to do…. We decided to separate Cree out from the
others in May 2018, but right next door in an adjoining enclosure, so
that they could still
interact, where the younger wolves would not be able to coerce or
control Cree,
unless the handlers were present, which of course immediately changes
the power relationships anyway. So Cree
continued to be walked with the other two wolves, who were quite
respectful of
Cree. In addition, when John is here from May through early November,
he’d walk
Cree by himself three days a week, so Cree was actually getting more
exercise
than the younger wolves, sometimes going out on the trails twice a day. One difficulty with the new Welcome Center
at the Refuge was
that it was also supposed to serve as an education center where we’d
give
classes on wolves, bears, rehab etc., but last year 50,000 people
visited the
Wildlife Refuge, and it became impossible to do the classes in the wide
open
single room of the Welcome Center, where visitors are registering for a
visit, or browsing through sweat shirts, photographs and coffee mugs. One family’s tragedy led to a solution for
the education
center, when a brilliant and beautiful young graduate of SUNY ESF, the
Ranger School, Kayla
Hanczyk, died of bile duct cancer, and her shattered family decided to
raise
money on FaceBook for a memorial to their daughter, who was a wolf
lover. They
asked for $1,000 on FaceBook, and the Public responded with $20,000, to
which
Kayla’s employer Northline
Utilities donated another $10,000. The
Hanzcyks are
one of these large, closely integrated families with lots of love, and
everyone is so talented,
they all built their own houses. They knew we needed a new Learning
Center, and they decided to provide the labor, and working
as a team, build the Kayla Hanzcyk Memorial Learning Center, a
structure that will probably be ready by late May, located down by the
ambassador
Eagles enclosures, with a nice view of the mountains and river. About two months ago, we noticed a fairly
dramatic slow down
in Cree’s mobility. A blood test added kidney failure to the arthritis,
and by late March 2019, Cree would try to howl and could not do so, and
about a week later,
it became clear that he could no longer walk with us, and there was
some evidence
of vision failure, as he appeared to be trying to locate me with his
nose, when
I was standing right next to him. We all know death is inevitable,
particularly
in these scary times of pandemic. but even when the problem is that
your old
body is worn down, and there is no reverse, nothing to delay what is
happening,
our memories of good times keep us from letting go. We all found
ourselves individually weeping
on and off, with Cree, always a gallant soul, trying to comfort each of
us, placing his head in
your
lap, and trying to look at you, like he knew there was nothing to do
other than
wait for the end, which came at 5 PM on Friday, shortly after Alex
arrived. Over his 14 years, Cree introduced thousands of visitors to
the interesting world of a keystone predator, and how the role of
wolves helps drive the balance of nature, and eventually led to man's
best friend. We loved having so many of you meet Cree, and we're
gratified that you have always supported the Adirondack Wildlife
Refuge, and what we do. We separated from the 501c3 Adirondack
Wildlife Inc. on September 4th, 2020, and now work under Nature Walks
Conservation Society, a much stronger and more qualified 501c3. |
“A human being is a part of the
whole called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. He
experiences himself, his thoughts and feeling as something separated
from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This
delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal
desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must
be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of
compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in
its beauty.”
― |
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Adirondack Wildlife Refuge & Rehabilitation Center
Steve & Wendy
Hall
PO
Box 555, 977 Springfield Road, Wilmington, NY 12997
Toll Free:
855-Wolf-Man (855-965-3626)
Cell Phones:
914-715-7620 or 914-772-5983
Office Phone:
518-946-2428
Fax: 518-536-9015
Email us: info@AdirondackWildlife.org