A new exhibit about wolves and coyotes opens Oct. 8 at the Kenosha Public Museum's West Gallery. Wolves and Wild Lands presented by the Uline Co. will continue through March 25, 2012.

The exhibit includes five wolf specimens and one coyote specimen on loan from the Bell Museum of Natural History, in cooperation with the International Wolf Center in Ely, Minn. The exhibition features wolves and their closely related cousins, the red wolf and coyote. The story of wolves in North America takes us to many places, from the Arctic to the southwestern United States.

This exhibition provides a compelling, continental perspective on wolves today. Organized by region, each wolf is presented in its human and natural-history context. For every region where wolves thrive--or struggle to survive--cultural and economic pressures continue to shape their existence. Among the topics discussed in the exhibit: whether coyotes threaten the survival of the red wolf in the Southeast; will coyotes win out in the competition for food and space in North America; will land development crowd out wolves in the Rocky Mountains?

During a family program at the museum at 2 p.m. on Saturday, October 8, science teacher Linda Dubaniewicz will share fascinating stories about her encounters with wolves and her work with wolf bi ologists. She helped track and capture wolves in the wild, tag them and put on radio collars to monitor their movements. The public is welcome to attend the free program, “Wanders with Wolves.”

Adrian Wydeven, mammalian ecologist/conservation biologist with the state Department of Natural Resources, will talk about “Wolves in Wisconsin” at 2 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 22 at the museum. He will discuss the wolf population in the state and the federal government's efforts to remove them from the endangered and threatened species list in the Great Lakes states.