Red Wolf Recovery Program - Field Notes and Observations

April - October, 2005

Weeks of April 5 th -27th, 2005

Leslie Schutte, Red Wolf Wildlife Biologist

Senior Biologist Chris Lucash and I have been investigating 2 potential denning females in the hopes of locating and processing her pups of that year. Yesterday ended with much ground covered but no pups found. These were older, experienced females who were being great mothers and doing a good job at hiding their dens. Today had the promise of beautiful April weather and we got an early start to avoid any chance of it turning into a typical, hot North Carolina day.

We approached the area of the first female's den and noticed in the distance a figure standing in the middle of the road. I pulled out the telemetry gear, tuned it to one of the denning female's frequencies and verified that it was her. This was a great sighting, but we still needed to locate the den. Unfortunately, this day also ended with no progress on locating her puppies. She wins again and we move on.

The second female had a litter of 6 puppies around this time last year, so having located her during telemetry flights, we watched to see if her movements were restricted. It seemed as though they were since the last couple of week's telemetry data showed her consistently in the same location. It was time to go in but we had to be much quieter this time. Yesterday we went in less than stealth-like and she quickly detected us and moved off. This morning we had a better understanding of the area, a new game plan and, with a little luck, would find some puppies.

While listening to her frequency with telemetry gear, we approached the area and she was right where we thought the den was located. We started the hour-long walk toward her, being as quiet as possible and maneuvering ourselves to remain down wind of her. Today was the day! We managed to get so close that she jumped up and ran from the den. As we processed her 9 puppies (5 females and 4 males), she skirted around the outskirts, waiting patiently until we moved off with our data. This was the largest den found so far. We checked this female off our list and now would look forward to catching up to 9 puppies later this winter.

October 31, 2005

Michael L. Morse, Red Wolf Wildlife Biologist

The morning started with bad news - our aerial telemetry vendor was closing his airplane operation at the Manteo airport. The news was very disturbing because the Red Wolf Recovery Program uses aerial telemetry as the primary means of monitoring the growing wolf population here in northeastern NC. From the air, I can census the entire 1.7 million acres of the recovery area and typically hear all 70 radio collars in about two hours. Covering such a vast area from the ground would be impractical due to the nature of the habitat and the staff time that would be necessary for such an undertaking.

Because today's flight might be the last for a while, I decided to make it a high altitude, long range flight. I'll do these flights 2-3 times a year to be able to look "outside" of the five county recovery area in an effort to find animals that may have wandered away from the core area. By flying at an altitude of 7000' and using antennas located on both sides of the plane (each one covering a distance of 20 miles), I'll be able to encompass a flight path 40 miles wide!

Usually aerial telemetry flights are conducted from an altitude of around 500' - 1000'. From that height I'm able to record locations on individual wolves. I'm also looking to be sure pack members are within their own territory boundaries or whether or not some of the yearlings have decided to "disperse" and try and form their own packs.

On this day, I unfortunately, heard a "mortality signal" from a male breeder that had been moving around after displacement from its territory. We had recently noticed from the air that this wolf did not look healthy and therefore, we had been attempting to capture it. When the animal was retrieved from the field later that day, it had apparently died from complications associated with sarcoptic mange (a very debilitating disease). This could help explain how an adult breeder had been displaced from his territory.

The rest of the flight was uneventful. On this day I didn't locate any missing animals outside of the recovery area. Fortunately, I found out later that we would still be able to use our vendor to conduct aerial telemetry activities until we could acquire a different vendor later on in the year.