Innovation Anthology #543:

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As ecologist Holger Bohm reported to the recent CONRAD Symposium on oil sands reclamation, the WHEC study on Wildlife Habitat Effectiveness and Connectivity is finding some interesting things about wolves.

Holger estimates that with the ten packs identified so far, there are about 60 to 80 wolves in the WHEC oil sands study area.

The wolves travel about 9 kilometers a day, and generally keep to defined ranges – except for two packs in the south.

HOLGER BOHM: So it’s very exciting for us to follow and we can see that one of the packs is actually moving into another home range more and more. Unfortunately given that we only have one or two radio collars per pack, this is our one wolf. So if we find someone who is a little more adventurous than other wolves, then we might just see that and then assume the whole pack is doing something, but it might not be the case. We always have that romantic notion that the pack is this family group that never changes and they all stick together. Which is partially true. But sometimes there’s a little bit of a soap opera going on indeed and you know, one wolf is moving over and seeing someone from the other pack. And it’s a little bit of a Romeo and Juliette story where you go over to the enemy every once in a while, I guess.

Howard Bohm says WHEC is also learning new information on what the wolves eat.

Thanks today to Syncrude.

I’M CHERYL CROUCHER

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Syncrude

Program Date: 2013-03-19