Mammal Research

In late July, we received a mortality signal from Wolf O4D’s collar. O4D was the breeding female of the Windsong Pack, and the wolf that persistently attempted—and in Summer 2023 often succeeded—to get on the large ranch we had fenced off so she could eat calf poop. Of course, we fenced the ranch specifically to keep wolves off of it so her behavior was very frustrating…more on that below. We hiked out to O4D's last location and found her body beneath a large spruce tree. She was thin and emaciated. We weighed her and she was 37 lbs. We couldn’t see any visible injuries. However, in late June, we suspected, based on substantial changes in O4D’s movements, that she had been hit by a car after crossing Highway 53, the main highway going through our area. In fact, two days after we suspected she had been hit, we thought she was dead near the highway because she had not moved. We hiked out to check but she wasn’t there. She had moved a few hundred meters away and bedded down. Slowly, she started moving in what seemed like a more typical pattern for wolves in the summer. I.e., traveling long distances and then bedding. We suspected maybe she had been injured but was recovering. But the fact she died about 3 weeks later from apparent starvation seemed too coincidental so after we found her body, we sent it in for a necropsy (an animal autopsy). The autopsy found that she had substantial injuries to her pelvis and back legs that were consistent with a vehicle collision. Specifically, the ligament attaching her back right leg to her pelvis completely ruptured and her right femur was displaced from the socket. She also had several fractures in her pelvis as well. Interestingly, the necropsy also found O4D had extensive trematode/fluke burden (i.e., parasites) in her bile ducts and liver which could have contributed to physical deterioration. In the end, she tried to keep going after being hit by a vehicle but she was likely never going to recover from such injuries. And the injuries clearly inhibited her ability to get food, and so she starved. Now we know some will be upset and claim we should have captured her and sent her to rehab. However, we had no idea of what condition she was in or the extent of her injuries, and couldn’t have gotten close enough to observe her if we wanted to. And capturing a specific wolf that was still moving substantially by human standards and who definitely would not have wanted to be captured would have been exceedingly difficult even if we wanted to do that. Anyway, Wolf O4D was a unique wolf that taught us critical lessons about what is needed to prevent wolf-livestock conflict. She, through her frustrating desire to get on this ranch, showed us where all of our weaknesses were and how we had to fortify the fence to prevent wolves from getting on. In fact, we think without her wearing a GPS-collar, the fence project probably would have been a failure because without that we would have known a wolf or wolves were getting on the ranch but would have had no idea where, or how to stop them. That would have led to increasing frustration and the depressing feeling that the fence just wasn’t working. But thank goodness of all the wolves to have collared we had the one wolf that was fixated with getting on that ranch. With a 7.5 mile fence line on the ranch, it is very hard to isolate the 1-2 foot section where a wolf is sliding under the fence. Having a GPS-collared wolf makes this much much easier. In Summer 2023, the first summer after we the fence was fully installed, O4D tested our patience repeatedly but we eventually learned how to thwart her attempts. And we felt pretty confident that if we could stop her, we could almost certainly stop most every wolf. And so in Summer 2024, the ranch had its first year in about 2 decades, per the rancher's recollection, without any depredations or missing calves that were likely killed by wolves. All was quiet and peaceful. Not sure that would have happened without the knowledge we gleaned from having Wolf O4D collared these past 2 years.