The Greatest Challenge for the
Voyageurs Wolf Project
By Tom Gable
Project Lead
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In April, we started our 11th summer field season—we have officially studied the wolves of the Greater Voyageurs Ecosystem for over a decade! And as every year ticks by, the data we collect becomes exponentially more valuable and insightful because it is part of a long-term dataset. Trends and patterns that we could not discern during the first 3, 5, or 7 years of our project are now starting to come into focus.
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Long-term wildlife research is invaluable for the insights it provides, insights that could not be gleaned by shorter studies that only last a handful of year. As such, our goal is to keep the research and outreach of the Voyageurs Wolf Project going in perpetuity so that the project can have a long and lasting impact. However, the largest existential challenge to our project’s future is funding. Wolf research is expensive and unlike virtually every other wolf research project in North America, our project receives no financial support from a state or federal agency.
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Further, we do not get any annual funding from the University of Minnesota either. The University does not cover the salaries of our full-time project staff, provide funding for equipment, housing, or any other expense required to keep the lights of the project on, though they do assist us with some administrative support.
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In other words, our project is entirely soft-funded and we must raise our entire budget every year from grants and donations. My position as Project Lead along with that of our other two full-time researchers (Austin Homkes and Sophie Heny) and our outreach and education coordinator (Maeve Rogers) are all soft-funded. If we fail to get grants or raise sufficient funds via donations, our project will end promptly because we will not have funds to cover salaries.
Image (Left/Top): Tom Gable (Project Lead) and Austin Homkes (Field Biologist) examine a wolf kill.
Given this reality, we spend considerable time chasing funding so we can keep the project going strong and ensure the project has a bright future. I mention this not to invoke sympathy or pity but rather to communicate how valuable you, as a donor, are to the work we do. Our project quite literally depends upon the continued support of donors such as yourself!
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We recently launched our annual spring fundraiser to raise $135,000 for our project this year. We are already on our the way to meeting this goal and could really use your continued financial support to reach the finish line (you can donate here).​​
Capturing yearling O5E from the Half-Moon Pack. GPS collars are vital to our research, and donations help make this work possible. Photo by Anthony Soufflé.
Over the past 5 years, >8,100 donors have provided hundreds of thousands of dollars in support of our work during our fundraisers. Without that support, we certainly would not be in the position we are today where we can continue to do cutting-edge research year in and year out while also sharing our key findings with everyone on social media.
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Although funding is our biggest existential challenge and threat long-term, the fact that we are a donor-supported project (i.e., not affiliated with any state or federal agency like most wolf projects) has provided substantial freedom in the way we conduct our research and outreach, and has allowed the project to flourish in unique and myriad ways.
Austin Homkes stands by a field boat on a remote northern lake—one of many tools donations make possible, helping us reach remote areas and monitor more wolves. Photo by Tom Gable.
Donations help us buy essential research tools—like trail cameras, supplies for field research, and sampling supplies—that power our fieldwork and expand our understanding of wolves in the GVE.
Indeed, because we are donor-supported we can explore any research topics we deem valuable, interesting, and worthwhile as long as we can raise the funding. This fact has undoubtedly allowed us to explore certain ideas or aspects of wolf ecology that otherwise would likely have gone unstudied because they might not have been deemed too difficult, unlikely to succeed, or otherwise not worth the time. Yet, by following our instincts and having the support from donors to do so, we have made many novel discoveries during our tenure on the project!
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Austin Homkes maintaining a remote trail camera located on the Kabetogama Peninsula.
Further, being donor-supported provides us with immense freedom to share our research however we want to. No one is reading our social media content and approving it, or telling us we cannot say this or say that. We have complete freedom in the information we share and how we share it. We suspect this freedom, in part, has allowed us to create authentic and high-impact content that folks trust and value—you aren’t reading content that has been produced, polished, and sanitized by a social media coordinator at an agency but rather you are hearing directly from us, the researchers. For instance, I run our social media channels, craft all of our social media posts, and am the one who responds to comments. ​​
​All this to say, while funding is a substantial and continual challenge for us, we are proud and happy to be a donor-supported project. Donor support enables us to be creative, think outside the box, and share what we think directly with everyone. So, if you value the research and outreach that we do, please donate to our spring fundraiser to help our project continue to thrive in 2025 (you can donate here). We certainly appreciate it and cannot wait to share what we learn over the coming year with everyone! ​​​​​​​
Donate and receive our new Summer 2025 sticker!
Speaking of long-term plans: our dream is to get the project endowed so that we have a reliable source of annual funding to cover a large portion of our expenses (e.g., salaries for researchers, field housing, equipment). Having an endowment would allow us to spend much more time on our research and less time simply trying to keep the lights on each year. Like I said, this is a dream but we like to dream big on the project…so far, that mindset has been beneficial for us! Who knows what the future might hold!​​
Tom Gable and graduate alumna Andrea Hynes carry yearling wolf O5E from the Half-Moon Pack after collaring. Photo credit: Anthony Soufflé.
​*Our project has received several grants from the Minnesota Environment and Natural Resources Trust Fund (ENRTF) over the past decade. These grants have been a huge boost for our efforts, and supported many aspects of our work. Although we hope to have the continued support of the ENRTF, there is no guarantee that we get support in the future.