When 1053 was trapped, her tracks were the only ones in the area, and she was never seen closely associating with another wolf. No. 1055 probably was with another wolf when captured, as evidenced by tracks. About a month after she was radiotagged she associated with another wolf intermittently for about 2 weeks, after which she was only seen alone.
No. 1057 and No. 1059 were both members of packs. No. 1057 was captured during the night after a pack of 13 wolves was seen heading toward the area; 5 days later she was seen with 10 other wolves, which no doubt represented this same pack. This wolf's association with the pack was interrupted, however, because of the foot injury sustained during capture. When 1059 was caught, tracks of two other wolves were seen in the immediate vicinity, and one of the animals was seen within a quarter mile of the trapped wolf. Three days after 1059's release, and perhaps sooner, she was back with her pack, with which she remained at least through March.
The detailed histories of the associations of the radiotagged wolves will be discussed in a later section.
Radiotagged wolves were tracked every day that weather permitted during December, January, and February; every week during March, April, and May; and once a month during June, July, and August ([fig. 16]). Information was obtained for a total of 570 "wolf-days"—a wolf-day being a day in which one radiotagged wolf was located; a pack of five being located for 1 day would constitute 5 wolf-days.
Figure 16.—Distribution of the days on which data were obtained for each of the radiotagged wolves. Because tracking success was 99 percent, this also represents the distribution of effort. During June, July, and August, wolves 1053 and 1059 were located 1 day each month.
The last day that animals 1051 and 1057 were heard from was April 24, 1969. Both had traveled long distances during the previous week and may have moved out of range. Signals from wolf 1055 were last heard on May 30; this animal had also been ranging widely. Circles with radii of at least 50 miles around the last known locations of each wolf were searched unsuccessfully for the signals. During all subsequent tracking nights for the remaining wolves, the missing animals were also sought, but to no avail. Before the last dates that signals from these animals were heard, attempts to locate marked animals from the air had failed in only three instances.
FOOTNOTES:
[8] David W. Kuehn, Personal correspondence to L. D. Mech, 1970.