[Fig. 20.—Movements of Wolf No. 10]

During March, April, and the first week of May Wolf No. 10 made three of these trips roughly paralleling the Lake Superior shore, and she remained in the Huron Mountain area for several days between trips. From late May until mid-July she made four such trips but did not remain long anywhere. During that time she gradually moved westerly to near the Dead River Basin. In late July she made another trip to the Dead River Basin area after a stay near the Big Bay dump. These trips enlarged No. 10's range considerably.

Early in July, Wolf No. 10 moved almost directly south from the Huron Mountain area to the Silver Lake area, again expanding her range to the west. From September 5 until October 10 she remained in the Silver Lake area, and there was no apparent pattern to her movements then. After the wolf was located on September 15 near a bait that bear hunters had put out on the west edge of the Mulligan Plains, a ground check was made. No evidence of the wolf was found at the bear bait, consisting mostly of fish, and no signal was heard there. A signal was picked up in the southwest corner of the Mulligan Plains, and the wolf was flushed from her bed about 80 yards (75 m) away.

On October 10, this wolf began a westward move, and on October 22 she was found south of Herman, 25 miles (40.2 km) west of Silver Lake. On October 24 she was located 6.5 miles (10.4 km) to the northeast, near Dirkman Lake. By October 26 she had moved 12 miles (19.3 km) southeast to within a mile of the town of Michigamme. From there she gradually moved northeastward. She was shot near Van Riper Lake during deer hunting season, probably on the morning of November 16.

During the westward move, this wolf had increased the size of her range by 87 square miles (222.7 km²), about a 30% increase. She seemed to be heading back to the Silver Lake area when she was killed.

Feeding Habits

What little information we could obtain on the wolves' feeding habits indicated considerable variation (Table 4).

In the Skanee area, which the pack of three first visited after leaving the release area, deer were abundant, and 7 to 10 were seen within a quarter mile (0.4 km) of the pack on March 20. It is possible that the wolves killed a deer there, for they remained in the area for a few days. They did scavenge deer feet and head remains on the 22nd at Laws Lake, 12 miles (19.3 km) southwest of Skanee. Deer were also sighted within a quarter mile of the wolves on March 25, April 15, April 16, May 7, June 8, and June 14.

The first confirmed deer kill was made east of Otter Lake about April 1. The deer was a 4½-year-old doe with a partly healed broken left front leg (radius) and fat-depleted bone marrow (1%); a bullet was found in the skin of the right front leg.