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| Time stamp shows spacing of the wolves |
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| They are not nose-to-tail |
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| Each one sniffed this same spot |
Three timber wolves walk single file through the bush, only a dozen or so seconds apart, behind our home in Nolalu.
My trail cameras always photograph wolves on our densely wooded property in this fashion -- single file -- as they follow my trails in their quest for whitetail deer. In more open country, such as in a cutover, I have observed a different hunting technique. There they seem to fan out hundreds of yards apart. When an animal finds a hot scent it follows it and when it has flushed the deer it vocalizes to the rest of the pack what is going on. The excited call sounds like ki-yi-yi, sort of like a dog when it is hurt. The others then come running to the sound.
4 comments:
Hey Dan!
This blog entry got me to thinking... How do wolves and coyotes interact? Does one seek or avoid the other?
Just curious.
Hi Doug,
That's a good question. It seems to me that coyotes keep clear of the wolves. I suspect the bigger canines would kill the smaller ones given the opportunity. I know that if I am getting photos every night of wolves on my trail cams I do not also get photos of coyotes.
I did get the shot of the coyote with mange a week or so ago, pretty close to the same spot where I just got photos of these three wolves. It could be that because the coyote is suffering from mange it is taking more chances, searching for easy meals around wolf kills.
The two species separate themselves most of the time. Coyotes prefer fields and open country while the timber wolves stick to the forests. Here in Nolalu we are right on the transition between the two systems. There is nothing but forest to the west with fields and bits of forest to the east.
Coyotes are one of those species that does well around people and agriculture. Up at Red Lake coyotes cluster right around the town. Out at camp there is pretty much nothing but wolves.
Dan,
When you go for your walks, do you carry a firearm? If not, have you had instances where you were stalked by another animal? Seems like you have an awful lot of predators out there.
I know most of you Canadians fear moose over bear, but where does the wolf sit on that list?
Neil
Hi Neil,
No, I never carry a gun. I think I have only ever heard of one person who was ever killed by a wolf in all of Canada. Timber wolves want nothing to do with people. It isn't like that in Europe but it is absolutely the case in North America. Black bears are the biggest threat, not in winter, of course. There are probably a dozen or more people attacked yearly in Canada and maybe one or two who die from the attack.
Black bears are a really misunderstood animal, both by people who see them every day and by those who have only read about them. The bears that hang around towns eating garbage virtually never hurt anyone and as a result many people get to thinking all bears are harmless. And then there are people who have never seen a bear that think all bears are killers. If a "town bear" ever hurts someone it usually comes from the person feeding the bear by hand and then running out of food. There was a case from Ear Falls like that maybe 15 years ago. A man claimed he was attacked by a bear at a campground for no reason, no reason at all. When a conservation officer investigated another camper showed him a video of the attack. It came after the victim ran out of M&Ms.
The real "killer" bears are the big male bears that have never seen a human before. Such bears either see the human as prey or think it is another bear. These big male bears defend their territory by killing any other bear that comes into it.
There are exceptions to the two scenarios I just mentioned but they are just that, the exceptions and not the rule.
I do know of a few people who were attacked by moose. They were all obviously mistaken for another moose. These events always take place in the fall when the moose are in the rut.
There was an interesting story last week on the radio about an animal attack in nearby Thunder Bay. A lady was walking her small dog in the dark when the leash suddenly became very heavy. Her flashlight showed that a lynx had grabbed the little dog by the head. She struck the big cat with her hands while not letting go of the leash but the lynx held on. Finally she grabbed the lynx in both hands and shook it furiously until it eventually dropped the dog. The woman was not harmed and the dog survived despite several puncture wounds through the skull.
Lynxes are like wolves in that they are no threat to people but will obviously go after your pets.
Biologists have an appropriate term for when an animal tunes out everything except the kill. They call it "predator-lock." Once the predator "locks on" to a prey animal it ignores other sensory information.
You asked if I was ever stalked. Once at camp I was stalked by a lynx, in a way. We used to trap minnows in a little lake out of Sadler Bay. I would go there daily, tie my boat to the shoreline and walk the trail over to the lake, pick up my traps and dump the minnows in two pails which I carried back to the boat. On the way back one time I met a lynx sitting on the trail. I just thought it was cool and watched him for about five minutes but since the minnows were dying for lack of oxygen started walking toward the lynx expecting him to bolt. Instead he turned around and walked ahead of me on the trail. So I stopped to let him disappear. He then stopped and sat back down on the trail. This happened a half dozen times before I reached the boat and was able to give the minnows some fresh water. While I did so the lynx sat watching me about six feet away. I'm sure he was just curious about what was going on.
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