Post by muskyhusky on Oct 19, 2008 0:26:25 GMT -6
The sound of a howling timber wolf is becoming a more common event in Wisconsin. A growing population, of wolves now live in Wisconsin, one of about a dozen states in the country where timber wolves exist in the wild.
Timber wolves, also called gray wolves, are the largest wild members of the dog family. Males are usually bigger than females. Timber wolves have silvery gray-brown backs, light tan and cream underparts, and bushy tails. In winter, their fur becomes darker on the neck, shoulders, and rump.
How can you tell the difference between a timber wolf and a coyote or a large dog? Size is a key difference between coyotes and wolves. A coyote is only half as big as a wolf. Wolves can be distinguished by tracks and various physical features. A wolf and other wild canids usually places its hind foot in the track left by the front foot, whereas a dog's front and hind foot tracks usually do not overlap each other. Wolves also differ from most dogs by having a narrower chest, longer legs, large feet, large head with cheek hair tufts, tail held down or straight but not curled, black tipped tail, and black spot on back of the tail.
Habits:
Wolves are social animals, living in a family group, or pack. A pack usually has six to ten animals: a dominant ("Alpha") male and female (the breeding pair), pups from the previous year (yearlings) and the current year's pups. Additional subordinate adults may join the pack upon occasion. The dominant pair is in charge of the pack, raising the young, selecting denning and rendezvous sites, capturing food and maintaining the territory.
A wolf pack's territory may cover 20-120 square miles, about one tenth the size of an average Wisconsin county. Thus, wolves require a lot of space in which to live, a fact that often invites conflict with humans.
While neighboring wolf packs might share a common border, their territories seldom overlap by more than a mile. A wolf that trespasses in another pack's territory risks being killed by that pack. It knows where its territory ends and another begins by smelling scent messages - urine and feces - left by other wolves. In addition, wolves announce their territory by howling. Howling also helps identify and reunite individuals that are scattered over their large territory.
How does a non-breeding wolf attain dominant, or breeding status? It can stay with its natal pack, "bide" its time and work its way up the dominance hierarchy. Or it can "disperse," leaving the pack to find a mate and a vacant area in which to start its own pack. Both strategies involve risk. A bider may be out-competed by another wolf and never achieve dominance. Dispersers usually leave the pack in autumn or winter, during hunting and trapping season.
Dispersers must be alert to entering other wolf packs' territories, and they must keep a constant vigil to avoid encounters with people, their major enemy.Dispersers have been known to travel great distances in a short time. One radio-collared Wisconsin wolf traveled 23 miles in one day. In ten months, one Minnesota wolf traveled 550 miles to Saskatchewan, Canada. A female wolf pup trapped in the eastern part of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, died from a vehicle collision near Johnson Creek in Jefferson County, Wisconsin in March 2001, about 300 miles from her home territory.
Nobody knows why some wolves disperse and others don't. Even siblings behave differently, as in the case of Carol and Big Al, radio-collared yearling sisters in one Wisconsin pack. Carol left the pack one December, returned in February, then dispersed 40 miles away. Big Al remained with the pack and probably became the pack's dominant female when her mother was illegally shot.
In another case, two siblings dispersed from their pack, but did so at different times and in different directions. One left in September and moved 45 miles east and the other went 85 miles west in November.
Food:
Timber wolves are carnivores feeding on other animals. A study in the early 1980's showed that the diet of Wisconsin wolves was comprised of 55% white-tailed deer, 16% beavers, 10% snowshoe hares and 19% mice, squirrels, muskrats and other small mammals. Deer comprise over 80% of the diet much of the year, but beaver become important in spring and fall. Beavers spend a lot of time on shore in the fall and spring, cutting trees for their food supply. Since beavers are easy to catch on land, wolves eat more of them in the fall and spring than during the rest of the year. In the winter, when beavers are in their lodges or moving safely beneath the ice, wolves rely on deer and hares. Wolves' summer diet is more diverse, including a greater variety of small mammals.
Breeding Biology:
Wolves are sexually mature when two years old, but seldom breed until they are older. In each pack, the dominant male and female are usually the only ones to breed. They prevent subordinate adults from mating by physically harassing them. Thus, a pack generally produces only one litter each year, averaging five to six pups.
In Wisconsin, wolves breed in late winter (late January and February). The female delivers the pups two months later in the back chamber of a den that she digs. The den's entrance tunnel is 6-12 feet long and 15-25 inches in diameter. Sometimes the female selects a hollow log, cave or abandoned beaver lodge instead of making a den.
At birth, wolf pups are deaf and blind, have dark fuzzy fur and weigh about one pound. They grow rapidly during the first three months, gaining about three pounds each week. Pups begin to see when two weeks old and can hear after three weeks. At this time, they become very active and playful.
When about six weeks old, the pups are weaned and the adults begin to bring them meat. Adults eat the meat at a kill site often miles away from the pups, then return and regurgitate the food for the pups to eat. The hungry pups jump and nip at the adults' muzzles to stimulate regurgitation.
The pack abandons the den when the pups are six to eight weeks old. The female carries the pups in her mouth to the first of a series of rendezvous sites or nursery areas. These sites are the focus of the pack's social activities for the summer months and are usually near water.
By August, the pups wander up to two to three miles from the rendezvous sites and use them less often. The pack abandons the sites in September or October and the pups, now almost full-grown, follow the adults.
Timber wolves, also called gray wolves, are the largest wild members of the dog family. Males are usually bigger than females. Timber wolves have silvery gray-brown backs, light tan and cream underparts, and bushy tails. In winter, their fur becomes darker on the neck, shoulders, and rump.
How can you tell the difference between a timber wolf and a coyote or a large dog? Size is a key difference between coyotes and wolves. A coyote is only half as big as a wolf. Wolves can be distinguished by tracks and various physical features. A wolf and other wild canids usually places its hind foot in the track left by the front foot, whereas a dog's front and hind foot tracks usually do not overlap each other. Wolves also differ from most dogs by having a narrower chest, longer legs, large feet, large head with cheek hair tufts, tail held down or straight but not curled, black tipped tail, and black spot on back of the tail.
Habits:
Wolves are social animals, living in a family group, or pack. A pack usually has six to ten animals: a dominant ("Alpha") male and female (the breeding pair), pups from the previous year (yearlings) and the current year's pups. Additional subordinate adults may join the pack upon occasion. The dominant pair is in charge of the pack, raising the young, selecting denning and rendezvous sites, capturing food and maintaining the territory.
A wolf pack's territory may cover 20-120 square miles, about one tenth the size of an average Wisconsin county. Thus, wolves require a lot of space in which to live, a fact that often invites conflict with humans.
While neighboring wolf packs might share a common border, their territories seldom overlap by more than a mile. A wolf that trespasses in another pack's territory risks being killed by that pack. It knows where its territory ends and another begins by smelling scent messages - urine and feces - left by other wolves. In addition, wolves announce their territory by howling. Howling also helps identify and reunite individuals that are scattered over their large territory.
How does a non-breeding wolf attain dominant, or breeding status? It can stay with its natal pack, "bide" its time and work its way up the dominance hierarchy. Or it can "disperse," leaving the pack to find a mate and a vacant area in which to start its own pack. Both strategies involve risk. A bider may be out-competed by another wolf and never achieve dominance. Dispersers usually leave the pack in autumn or winter, during hunting and trapping season.
Dispersers must be alert to entering other wolf packs' territories, and they must keep a constant vigil to avoid encounters with people, their major enemy.Dispersers have been known to travel great distances in a short time. One radio-collared Wisconsin wolf traveled 23 miles in one day. In ten months, one Minnesota wolf traveled 550 miles to Saskatchewan, Canada. A female wolf pup trapped in the eastern part of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, died from a vehicle collision near Johnson Creek in Jefferson County, Wisconsin in March 2001, about 300 miles from her home territory.
Nobody knows why some wolves disperse and others don't. Even siblings behave differently, as in the case of Carol and Big Al, radio-collared yearling sisters in one Wisconsin pack. Carol left the pack one December, returned in February, then dispersed 40 miles away. Big Al remained with the pack and probably became the pack's dominant female when her mother was illegally shot.
In another case, two siblings dispersed from their pack, but did so at different times and in different directions. One left in September and moved 45 miles east and the other went 85 miles west in November.
Food:
Timber wolves are carnivores feeding on other animals. A study in the early 1980's showed that the diet of Wisconsin wolves was comprised of 55% white-tailed deer, 16% beavers, 10% snowshoe hares and 19% mice, squirrels, muskrats and other small mammals. Deer comprise over 80% of the diet much of the year, but beaver become important in spring and fall. Beavers spend a lot of time on shore in the fall and spring, cutting trees for their food supply. Since beavers are easy to catch on land, wolves eat more of them in the fall and spring than during the rest of the year. In the winter, when beavers are in their lodges or moving safely beneath the ice, wolves rely on deer and hares. Wolves' summer diet is more diverse, including a greater variety of small mammals.
Breeding Biology:
Wolves are sexually mature when two years old, but seldom breed until they are older. In each pack, the dominant male and female are usually the only ones to breed. They prevent subordinate adults from mating by physically harassing them. Thus, a pack generally produces only one litter each year, averaging five to six pups.
In Wisconsin, wolves breed in late winter (late January and February). The female delivers the pups two months later in the back chamber of a den that she digs. The den's entrance tunnel is 6-12 feet long and 15-25 inches in diameter. Sometimes the female selects a hollow log, cave or abandoned beaver lodge instead of making a den.
At birth, wolf pups are deaf and blind, have dark fuzzy fur and weigh about one pound. They grow rapidly during the first three months, gaining about three pounds each week. Pups begin to see when two weeks old and can hear after three weeks. At this time, they become very active and playful.
When about six weeks old, the pups are weaned and the adults begin to bring them meat. Adults eat the meat at a kill site often miles away from the pups, then return and regurgitate the food for the pups to eat. The hungry pups jump and nip at the adults' muzzles to stimulate regurgitation.
The pack abandons the den when the pups are six to eight weeks old. The female carries the pups in her mouth to the first of a series of rendezvous sites or nursery areas. These sites are the focus of the pack's social activities for the summer months and are usually near water.
By August, the pups wander up to two to three miles from the rendezvous sites and use them less often. The pack abandons the sites in September or October and the pups, now almost full-grown, follow the adults.
