Brutus' Locations
We continue to be thrilled to download Brutus' locations and to try to deduce the behavior of him and his pack. We suspect the pack has moved the pups again to a new rendezvous site back across the river flats that we found so uncrossable last summer. We also suspect several of the locations as indicating muskox kills. Because the locations are precise to within a few yards or meters, next summer we should be able use hand-held GPS units to check these sites for kill remains.
Here is an example of a long move that Brutus made in no more than 12 hours. The distance was 21.32-miles (straight-line), but we really suspect that he did not cross over the top of Blacktop Mt, but rather went around. This would make the distance he traveled much more than 21 miles.
Dave
It’s amazing to see and read about the movement of the wolves. Do you expect to see more or less movement as the weather gets colder?
ReplyDeleteI expect to see more movement as fall and winter progress. In most areas the pups have developed well enough by October or November to join the travels of the adults. Thus the adults no longer have to return to the pups in the rendezvous site every day or so to feed them like they are doing now. Instead the whole pack becomes nomadic. Second, the fiords will soon begin to freeze again as the area loses an hour of light a day. This would allow the wolves to cross to new areas. Third, by now the young muskoxen and hares have grown much more, and many have already been killed. Thus there are fewer, which means the pack should have to travel farther to find enough more prey to feed on. But it is an interesting question that we have been wondering about for years. Hopefully now, time will tell.
ReplyDeleteDave
Thanks for the explanation. I look forward to watching the blog as the story unfolds.
ReplyDeleteI know it's not really like being there - but reading about it as it happens is as close as I'll be coming to being there anytime soon.
Thanks for your good work! Ann