Today was the first meeting for our new Club President, Ed James.  Ed opened the meeting with a quote from Winston Churchill: “We make a living by what we get but we make a life by what we give.”
 
We weren’t able to view the Important Dates List during the meeting, but they are available to download by clicking here.
 
No-Plate Dinner Fundraiser report – Cindy emailed the No-Plate flyer to each of us last Thursday.  Please distribute it to friends and family.  Charlie Longbella will have the Fundraiser info on Facebook soon.  Please share it on your Facebook pages to give as many people as possible a chance to donate.
 
Geoff Hollimon reported that the Suburban Ramsey Emergency Coalition made a $5,000 grant to CPY to help with the cost of their food distribution program in conjunction with Ralph Reeder Food Shelf.  He also noted that the Coalition’s Three Mile Community Virtual Run/Walk fundraiser will be held from Monday, August 3-Sunday, August 9, 2020.  Click the link above for details.  The Suburban Ramsey Emergency Coalition’s volunteer seamstresses have sewn 200 isolation gowns for the Ramsey County Care Center.
 
Our Presenter today was Tom Gable, UofMN Ph.D candidate and Project Director of the Voyageurs National Park Wolf Project.  The Wolf Project is a collaboration of the University of Minnesota and Voyageurs National Park.  The project’s goal is to better understand the reproductive and predation habits of the park’s wolves.  Because the wolves don’t recognize the boundaries of the park, the project actually covers all of Voyageurs plus a lot of land to the south of the park.  The project covers a total area of 13,000 acres!  Tom noted that 101 of the 103 landowners in the project area have agreed to cooperate with the project.  Tom briefly mentioned the wolf reproduction part of the project and referred us to the project website for more information.  His main focus for today’s presentation was the predation habits of the Park’s wolves.  There have been many studies of Wolf predation in wintertime, when wolf kills of deer and moose are easily identifiable in the snow from the air.  We don’t know much, however, about wolves affect on the smaller prey like beavers and small fawns that they prey on in the summer. Summertime foliage prevents aerial location of kills and the smaller prey are almost completely consumed by the wolves, leaving almost no evidence of the kill.  GPS tracking collars have now been employed that broadcast a collared wolfs location every 20 minutes.  Whenever there a two consecutive pings from the same location, researchers are confident that the wolf has made a kill.  Each 20 minute stop is investigated by researchers who have logged 15,000 hours of fieldwork and 17,000 miles of hiking to locate kill sites.  This work has yielded interesting summertime wolf kill data.  An average wolf kills 13-15 fawns and 9-11 beavers each summer, but there is great variability depending on number of prey, energy demand of their pups, predatory specialization and hunting ability of the individual wolves.
 
Tom feels that, in addition to the scientific value of the data accumulated by the project, there is also great value in the potential for outreach.  He said that the project’s Facebook page has already reached a total of 24.9 million people and continues to reach 91,000 more each day.  The page now has 58,000 followers worldwide.  He hopes that this kind of outreach will help to establish a long-term research project on the Voyageurs wolf population. 
 
Today’s No-Plate auction action had Denise Jacobsen’s $125 first round Running Aces package bid go unchallenged, so Denise is the winner of the package.  The first round of bidding for the $50 Tavern gift certificate was snapped up by Ed James with a full value $50 dollar bid (no need for a second round of bidding),
 
John Ordway said that son Dan and his new wife are expecting in February.  John will be a grandpa for the first time!
 
Jason Miller spent a week in the BWCA with family and friends
 
New Club President Ed James thanked outgoing President Dennis Connolly for his service to the club over the past year.  Ed noted that Dennis had also put together our submission for District Awards two years ago with great success.  He hopes we can renew that recognition effort for the coming year.