Up at our lake place, the ecology has been upset by logging and hunting, with the result that moose populations dropped a few years ago, then rebounded. This is good, but in the meantime, the range of the endangered mountain caribou started overlapping with that of the moose. Wolf population had risen along with that of moose, but as opportunists, they prey on caribou as well as moose, which is a problem for the small population of caribou.

In the past, the wolf population would have been controlled by hunting, trapping or poisoning, none of which are acceptable any more.

The new program works by having conservation officers trap the alpha male of the pack, taking him to a vet where a vasectomy is performed. He is then returned to the area where, none the wiser, he continues to mate as usual. Of course, no offspring result, and the overall wolf population declines.

It will be interesting to see how well it works.