How the wildfires are impacting the International Wolf Center

Welcome back. The northern Minnesota wildfires are impacting more than just homes, businesses, and campgrounds, hotels. It's also impacting some of the state's most iconic wildlife refuges and organizations that are based in Ely, Minnesota. The International Wolf Center is there in Ely, and while they're still opening they are having to adjust operations and make plans in case they have to evacuate. Look at this video here. You can see the haze and smoke over the Wolf Center as they prepare for a possible evacuation. They've been told to be ready just in case as these wildfires continue to burn. Like I mentioned, the center remains open. Staff have been forced to adapt as conditions change, but the care for the wolves never changes. Krista thank you so much for coming on our show. I know that you guys are busy and under a lot of stress, so thank you for making the time. Thanks for having me. So what's the current status? I know you guys are open and still welcoming visitors. What's your current status and how are you remaining operational? We are open, so we are still operating with our normal summer hours, which is nine to five every day. We are telling everyone that that is definitely subject to change. At this moment, the International Wolf Center and the immediate area right around us is not in one of the ready, set, go zones that they have established for getting people prepared for evacuations. However, moving wolves is not exactly a particularly quick and it can be a complicated task, so we are very ready for that. We did close for part of the day so that we could let our staff go home and get ready. We do have staff that are in various stages of that evacuation zone and then we had the opportunity to really dig into our existing wildfire evacuation plan and make adjustments as needed just based on this particular fire and situation. So what happens if you do have to evacuate? What do you do with the wolves? So we would move the wolves off site. As you can probably imagine, they don't generally just walk into a crate, so we would need to chemically immobilize them. So our vet care plan is developed with our wolf care team and our local veterinarian that we work really closely with and that is developed and has been part of our organization and our USDA license for having wolves on our facility. So they would be chemically immobilized, loaded into individual crates and then those crates are loaded into a couple of different vehicles and then are driven off site. So we do have a few options. We wanted to make sure that we had different routes, different roads. If a different fire came up in a different direction, we want to be ready for that. So we have some staging areas identified and then we have a bit longer term options that are in a few different places around the state actually. And I know you're open and you continue to show up for work every day, but I have to imagine the personal stress is a lot. I'm sure there are people on your staff who maybe had to be evacuated or at least have to be set and ready to go. What is it like there just for you guys personally? Honestly, it's pretty stressful. We do have staff that are in go zones that did need to actually leave their homes and they don't know when they're going to be able to go back to them. And we certainly also have staff that are in set zones and others that are right next to those set zones. So we have an incredible community both within the Wolfe Center itself and our staff, but also within the Ely community of really a ton of support for each other. So we gave each other, you know, we closed for half a day to give each other that time to be able to go home and pack. And then we came back to work. We really felt like that was also an important part of our community, but also us being together and taking care of our wolves and making sure everything is ready. The air quality index in Ely is astronomical. It's about eight times that of the maximum safe index. Obviously bad for humans, but I've read that it's also bad for animals. Are the wolves able to be outside right now and how are you guys dealing with that? They are outside. There is definitely a concern about that air quality is certainly not great. But we have provided a couple of different options for our wolves. We've changed a little bit of our programming. So we generally do an enrichment program. We call it at noon and at four each day. And that is something interesting for the wolves. It could be a snack. It could be something to smell. It could be something different that they don't see every day that makes them use their senses and explore their environment a bit more. And we have mostly suspended that. If they are resting comfortably, we have chosen to not encourage them to get up from wherever they've chosen to be. But we also have an indoor space that they have access to. So they can choose to go into a building that has a wolf proof kennel space that they can rest in. And we have a few fans set up even in part of their outdoor space. They have a acre and a quarter enclosure and we've got very large industrial fans set up so that there are some kind of safer zones for them that they and they are choosing to use those areas. What about wolves in the wild? Do you guys have concerns about the wild animals in the region right now who are having to flee from these wildfires? We do. I have not heard a lot about kind of different activity patterns or at least that people are seeing. I would assume that those wild animals, the bears, the wolves, the deer, all of them are adjusting and probably fairly quickly leaving those areas. We have not seen any kind of major change in activity of wildlife, at least within the Ely area and really close to town. I haven't seen wolf activity. I haven't seen any additional bear or deer activity. I would think that some of those fires are a little bit farther out and they have the option to kind of continue to flee farther into the wilderness, which is probably what a lot of them are doing. Are people actually still coming in and visiting? I just don't, I can't imagine many people are, you know, out and about in Ely, but are people still coming in? They are. We, town has gotten a little bit quieter for sure. I think the evacuations that are happening fairly close to us, quite close to us, and include areas that have a lot of resorts and outfitters that are really being impacted. It has gotten a little less busy in town as far as just the summer traffic and tourists that are visiting our area, but people are still coming. I think there are people still in areas that are not part of that evacuation zone and aren't in any of those ready, set, goes. And it's also an indoor space. So our wolves do live outside, but our facility for the visitor experience is entirely indoors. And so we had just ridiculous amounts of heat. Now we have fires and pretty terrible air quality. And so it's a, I think it's a pretty good place for people that are looking for a little bit of a reprieve and enough space to go and learn about wolves while they're at it. Just so people understand more what you do there, are these wolves that have been rescued, are they unable to live in the wild anymore or what's the situation and how many do you have there? You know, we have five wolves and they are our ambassador wolves. We actually adopt them as fairly young wolves from other facilities, roughly every four years. And we do that to maintain an ambassador wolf pack. And we do that because we're teaching people about wolves. We're teaching about biology and ecology and their role in the ecosystem and the wolf and human relationship. So our pack of five wolves lives in a acre and a quarter enclosure. And then we have exhibits and staff and really cool programs that teach about wolves. So our wolves, because of that, they were born in a captive environment and are still under human care. They are not able to be released. And they would not have been originally even prior to us adopting them. But that's how we have our wolf pack and then maintain those wolves with us. And you talked about having to load them into crates and relocate them if you do get evacuated, which who knows right now. But I know you guys are thinking about that and having to prepare for that possibility. Where do you go then? I mean, do you just go to Babbitt? Do you have a location? I mean, where do you go? You know, you can't go to the Babbitt evacuation center, right? So I actually haven't called them to ask, but maybe I should. We actually have a couple of options. So one of ours is on the way to Babbitt. We've got our plan involves staging areas. So as one can probably imagine, the wolves would be chemically immobilized. They would be asleep. However, we still need to be able to check on them and check on them pretty regularly while they're in their transport crates. So we have a few places along the way that are identified as staging areas that we can stop, at least unload the crates out of the trucks if we need to. Ideally, we wouldn't need to, but we could. And then we would be able to check on them, make sure the temperature is okay, make sure that that level of drugs that's keeping them asleep is sufficient and that they are doing okay. And then continue on our way. And we have a couple of places. One is actually along the North Shore. And some are also closer to the Twin Cities area that we could go to. So those staging areas are really meant for us to be able to check on the wolves, but also assess where everything is. So we wanted to be able to, if a fire popped up in one direction, we needed to have a route that we knew we could take and staging areas in another location that we could land at, regardless of where the fires are. Have you ever had to evacuate the wolves? We have not. And I'm really hoping that this is not the first time. Yeah, I hope so too. What does it look like outside there right now? And have you seen any improvements since yesterday? I, it looks, it's very hazy. It is very thick. I think the, I would not say that I've seen improvements. I think it's different. Yesterday there was a definite different color of glow to the sky, just as the sun was coming up and the smoke and all of that was kind of mixing as the sun came up in the morning. And now it's just a pretty thick haze that is kind of everywhere. And it's pretty thick. You can see it through town. You can see it out every window. And the smell is pretty strong. Wow. Well, I hope you know that everyone across the state is thinking about you guys. You are quite the resilient community up there in northern Minnesota. So that we are, and we appreciate it. We have had some amazing notes and things sent, and I can say for sure that that is been really helpful. It has been a bit of a hard week. So we thank everybody. Krista or Heidi from the International Wolf Center, thank you so much for joining me. Thank you for having me.