Voyageurs Wolf Project

USA

Voyageurs Wolf Project

Revealing the lives of grey wolves in Minnesota, USA.

What do wolves do during the summer? This has historically proven to be a challenging question to answer, so it is one of the most significant knowledge gaps in wolf ecology.

The Voyageurs Wolf Project (VWP) is dedicated to answering this question. Based at the University of Minnesota and focused on Minnesota's Greater Voyageurs Ecosystem, the project seeks to understand the predation behaviour and reproductive ecology of wolves during summertime.

As a keystone species, wolves are crucial for maintaining healthy ecosystems, making a deeper understanding of their ecology vital for effective wolf conservation and benefiting biodiversity on a broader scale.

Who's involved

Revealing the Lives of Wolves

Throughout the winter, wolves hunt as packs and prey on large species such as moose. Once wolf pups are born in the spring, wolves become more solitary predators, returning to and from the den or rendezvous site between hunting bouts. This is a critical time for wolf pup survival, as the small pups are most vulnerable in the early months of their lives.

During this time, wolves primarily hunt small prey such as beavers and deer fawns, but little is known about these predation behaviours and how they influence the survival of the pack. Observing predation is almost impossible through the dense summer vegetation and smaller prey are often consumed quickly, leaving little trace for researchers to unpack these behaviours.

COMBINED MONITORING

VWP are using GPS collars combined with trail camera monitoring to reveal the lives of Minnesota's wolves during summertime. Each year, a number of wolves from different packs are fitted with GPS collars. The GPS signals show the team where wolves are killing prey, where they rendezvous and where they den. Strategically placed trail cameras then provide footage at these locations to provide visual evidence of predation behaviour, pack composition and pup survival, helping to create a detailed picture of the life of a wolf pack during summertime.

By gathering this in-depth data on wolf predation behaviour and reproductive ecology, VWP establish vital connections between various aspects of wolf behavior in the summer, encompassing ecological factors, prey populations, and interactions with humans.

How NatureSpy Are Supporting

NatureSpy have donated 20 trail cameras to VWP to help the team document the hard-to-observe summer behaviours of Minnesota's wolves. VWP’s trail cameras of choice are Browning Spec Ops models, as they combine excellent video quality with added discretion of no-glow infrared LEDs for nighttime footage.

In addition to revealing wolf behaviours for research purposes, this engaging video footage is an excellent resource for public engagement, showcasing the behaviours of wild wolves and the ecosystems they are a part of. This is an integral part of VWP’s outreach efforts on social media and in the press. The project’s YouTube channel has proven very popular, garnering millions of views from people that are fascinated by the mesmerising lives of wolves.