Voyageurs Wolf Project gives unparalleled look into how wolves relate to their surroundings
MINNEAPOLIS – Humans are learning more than they ever have about wolves and how they live, and it's all thanks to a group of Minnesota scientists.
The Voyageurs Wolf Project, based in northern Minnesota, uses GPS tracking collars and trail cameras for an unparalleled look into how wolves relate to their surroundings.
One of the insights Tom Gable and his team have picked up is that wolves' diets can be flexible. For example, they eat blueberries.
"Blueberries are abundant and typically the berries are becoming abundant when a lot of wolves' other primary prey are getting challenging for them to catch and kill," Gable said.
He says the project aims to understand wolves' predation behavior and how they rear their pups.
More than a dozen wolves wear the collars and send back their real-time locations every 20 minutes.
The researchers have seen wolves travel to Wisconsin, western Minnesota, and different areas of Canada. Oftentimes they're without a pack, the proverbial lone wolf.
"They want to go elsewhere to look for a mate and a territory where they can sort of establish their own pack and have their own family," Gable said.
If the wolves linger in one area, that's when Gable and the others move in, looking for clues to find out why. He says trampled grass and small animal bones can reveal a lot.
As top predators, wolves can have large impacts on ecosystems and other species.
"It just lets us understand how the natural world works, and I think, as a scientist, there's a lot of value in understanding the way the natural world works," Gable said.
The project's funded by Minnesota's Environment and Natural Resources Trust Fund.
