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Tracking Artic Wolves


ejano
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This article puts me in mind of the old book, Never Cry Wolf (also a Disney movie.) Has anyone read that?

 

 

From Scientific American - online

 

 

It's hard to mistake that sound. Now imagine hearing it during a night that can last for months and where temperatures drop as low as –37 degrees Celsius. Enough to give nightmares to musk ox and Arctic hares, the favorite prey of the long-legged white wolves of the Arctic

 

These wolves cover a lot of frozen ground. Researchers put a GPS collar on a pack leader they named Brutus and found that he roamed as many as 41 kilometers in a 12 hour period. That includes jaunts across the newly formed sea ice between the pack's home on Ellesmere Island and adjacent islands in Nunavut.

 

Of course, it would be impossible for scientists to personally track the white wolves in winter. So the collar communicates with satellites. The telemetry reveals that these wolves are often on the move. The 90-pound Brutus and his pack of at least a dozen wolves covered 2,726 kilometers between July 8—the date during the month-long Arctic summer when Brutus was collared—and November 30, within a region of more than 1,900 square kilometers.

 

In the summer, the wolves are homebodies, taking care of new pups. But this new information helps solve the mystery of what the canine predators do to survive the brutal Arctic winter. Now the question becomes how the wolves know when to stop using the sea ice once the spring thaw begins.

 

—David Biello

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Farley Mowat... Yup, good one. His "The Boat That Wouldn't Float" was great too. Especially if you have ever tried to get a leaky old tub seaworthy again...

 

And the Disney movie, "Never Cry Wolf." Disney got it right for once... (I'm not a big fan of the Mouse...) But that wolf's tail tied to one of the struts on that seaplane. I'll never forget it. :rolleyes: And the guy finding new an appealing ways to prepare mice for himself. :D

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"Never Cry Wolf" was a surprisingly good movie; thanks for reminding me about it. :rolleyes:

 

When Bryan Dennehy dropped off Charles Martin Smith in the middle of nowhere and just took off, I thought it was going to be a real snooze from there. Boy, was I wrong. I'm I glad I stuck with it.

 

Two thumbs up in my book.

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I have both of Farley Mowat's books. I used to see him on TV, when I was a kid, on the Jack Paar show.

 

Up until then, wolves were the bad guys in nursery and adventure stories. After hearing him talk, I knew that wolves were the heroes.

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Another book along the same lines is In the Shadow of a Rainbow. It is a true story by Robert Franklin Leslie.

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"Never Cry Wolf" was a surprisingly good movie; thanks for reminding me about it. :rolleyes:

 

When Bryan Dennehy dropped off Charles Martin Smith in the middle of nowhere and just took off, I thought it was going to be a real snooze from there. Boy, was I wrong. I'm I glad I stuck with it.

 

Two thumbs up in my book.

 

You mean when he dropped him with the canoe filled with "Moose Beer" :D. The scenes of him typing away in the blizzard, trying to file his reports are so funny.

 

Liz

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