June 16, 2010

The Brutus Pack's Kills and Rendezvous Sites

Our analysis of the locations of Brutus and pack so far indicates that between July 9 and December 21, 2010 the pack made about 30 possible muskox kills. Our main assumption in this analysis is that if Brutus remained at, or within .5 km of a location more than once (i.e., for more than 12 hr), the reason was to feed on a kill.

From July through Nov. 17, however, multiple times at a single location could also indicate visits to pups at a den or a rendezvous site. We identified 5 probable rendezvous sites (RS) based on multiple visits/site:

Distance Between Sites
RS First date #VisitsMiKm
1 7-18-1200 6
2 8-5-0000 38 11.318.2
3 8-17-1200 6 8.413.5
4 8-25-1200 20 3.45.9
5 10-11-00 13 13.521.7
The above dates show when Brutus first visited each of the RSs, and their locations are shown in the accompanying map. However, the pack moved back and forth among the sites. For example, Brutus used RS 2 between 8/5 and 8/17, but he also returned there 8/21 - 8/25; 9/15 - 9/27; 10/8 - 10/9; 10/14; 10/22 - 23; and 11/17, while using other RSs in between.

Often during summer the wolves move pups to kills, and then the pups stay there for extended periods, and those become RSs. If that was the case with these RSs, that would add another possible 5 kills to the kill total through December 21.

Dave

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