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Abstract Land use and climate change alter species distributions worldwide, and detecting and understanding how species ranges shift can facilitate conservation planning and action. Following extirpation from most of the contiguous United States, gray wolves (Canis lupus) have partially recolonized former range in the western Great Lakes region, but it is unknown how land use and climate change may alter amounts of wolf habitat. Using wolf observation data collected during winters 2017–2020 in Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Michigan, we created ensemble models to predict how land use and climate change may affect the amount of wolf habitat within these states. A projection model for the western Great Lakes region suggested three of four scenarios of land use and climate change will lead to 9%–35% increases in wolf habitat, while a solely climate‐based projection model supported our expectation that changes in climate, in isolation, will have limited effect on current wolf range. Our results support stable or increasing amounts of wolf habitat in the western Great Lakes region during the 21st century, suggesting limited or no adverse effects on the current distribution or further recolonization of wolves. Our findings can inform policy development regarding wolf conservation and identify areas where recolonization is plausible, thus where promoting human–wolf coexistence is most pertinent.

Infanticide occurs in a variety of animal species and infanticide risk has large implications for the evolution of behavior. Further, the sex hypothesis of sexual segregation predicts that for species in which infanticide occurs, females with dependent young will avoid males to reduce risk of sexually-selected infanticide. Infanticide risk-avoidance behavior has been studied primarily in social species, but also occurs in some solitary species. We used generalized linear mixed models to determine if space use and movements of female American black bears (Ursus americanus) during the breeding season were consistent with the sex hypothesis of sexual segregation in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, USA. Space use and movements of female black bears (n = 16) were not consistent with avoidance behavior to reduce sexually-selected infanticide risk. Females with cubs occupied core areas (mean = 4.64 km2, standard error [SE] = 1.28) and home ranges (mean = 19.46 km2, SE = 5.10) of similar size to females without cubs (core area [mean = 4.11 km2, SE = 0.59]; home range [mean = 16.07 km2, SE = 2.26]), and those core areas and home ranges were not in areas with lesser relative probability of male use. Additionally, females with cubs did not reduce movements during times of day when male movements were greatest. As female bears do avoid potentially infanticidal males in populations with greater levels of infanticide, female black bears may exhibit variation in avoidance behavior based on the occurrence of infanticide.