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Wolf expert suspects pack will survive following death of breeding male

“Fortunately, it’s late enough in the year, and there are other wolves there, that I suspect that the pups will be OK,” said Canadian wolf expert Paul Paquet
wolf 1901
A remote camera catches a photo of wolf 1901 with three pups travelling through the Cascade Wildlife Corridor Nov. 14, 2019. PARKS CANADA PHOTO

BANFF – The alpha male of the Bow Valley wolf pack was run over and killed on the Trans-Canada Highway near the Banff townsite last week.

The death of wolf 1901 raises questions about the future of the pack given the breeding female is at the den site with one-month-old pups, and the other five remaining members of the pack are either yearlings or two-year-olds.

Parks Canada wildlife officials say studies have shown that wolf packs disintegrate about 25 per cent of the time when one of the breeding pair dies.

“We don’t know how this will affect the Bow Valley pack,” said Jesse Whittington, a wildlife biologist for Banff National Park, noting wolf 1901 was a skilled hunter with high success rates predating on elk and deer and bringing food back to the den.

“This will be a loss for the pack, but given that there are some other wolves remaining in the pack, that increases their likelihood of the pups’ survival. We’ll have to watch to see how they fare and whether the breeding female finds another mate next winter.”

Wolf 1901 was found dead early Wednesday (May 20) on the Trans-Canada Highway about 1.5 kilometres west of the Banff townsite near the Third Vermilion Lake.

After a call was made to Banff dispatch, Parks Canada resource conservation specialists went to investigate and found the dead wolf. 

Paul Paquet, a renowned Canadian wolf expert, said the death of the wolf on the highway is not unexpected.

“This is not unusual as we know; it’s one of the legacies of the park … it’s sad,”  said Paquet, a senior scientist at Raincoast Conservation Foundation and adjunct professor at the University of Victoria. 

“Fortunately, it’s late enough in the year, and there are other wolves there, that I suspect that the pups will be OK.”

For now, the breeding female – known as 1701 – will spend her time caring for and nursing the wolf pups.

“When she has the pups, they remain in the den together,” said Paquet, noting the pups are blind and deaf when born.

“She is being assisted all along in the rearing and caring of these pups by the other pack members.”

Paquet said he suspects the younger members of the pack, including the yearlings, will continue hunting to support the pack.

“They should be OK. There’s both the intuition that they have, which would be innate, and they’ve been with the pack long enough that they are well aware and probably quite capable hunters,” he said.

“They will kill away from the den and consume a lot of what they kill on site, and then they return and regurgitate that for her and the pups. Sometimes they will bring portions of whatever it is they kill back.”

It would be unusual for the breeding female wolf to leave her pups to hunt before five or six weeks, said Paquet.

At that point, he said she will move the pups to rendezvous sites where the pups will be much more active.

“Sometimes they only nurse up to the third week. They will continue to nurse intermittently, but not dependently, so they can survive without her if she was no longer able to nurse after about three weeks,” said Paquet.

“That’s advantageous in this situation as well; it gives her a little bit more freedom.”

However, Paquet said the death of the breeding male wolf is still a blow to the pack, noting that breeding males play an important role in pack dynamics.

“It’s disruptive to the pack and they lose all that knowledge that comes with that individual,” he said.

“There’s cultures in wolves and within packs themselves, and they are multi-generational and they carry information across generations, and that’s of great importance and that’s lost over time,” he added.

“We’re always looking at things from a numeric view, which only gives you part of the information. It’s not just only about numbers, it’s about the social disruptions and the cultural disruptions to these packs and what that means to them.”

The hope is the breeding female will find another mate.

“She could mate within her own pack, and that could be her own offspring, and this is not unusual if there no available wolves,” said Paquet.

“But there’s also the possibility that a dispersing male would be integrated into the pack.”

Meanwhile, Parks Canada is investigating to determine how the wolf got onto the fenced highway, but based on GPS data from the collared wolf, suspect it might have happened at the highway’s junction with the Bow Valley Parkway. 

Whittington said Parks Canada spends time and money fencing the highway and building overpasses and underpasses to help wildlife such as wolves cross safely, but noted the junctions with secondary roads historically have been weak points in the system.

“We do have cattle guards at those road junctions that they can get across,” he said. “We have plans to test some electrified cattle guards to see if that can work better.”

The alpha male wolf’s GPS data shows he was travelling east from the Bow Valley Parkway towards the Banff townsite at the time he was struck by a vehicle.

“The GPS data for the last week shows the wolves have been hunting around Norquay, Minnewanka and Fairholme bench, and travelling back and forth from those areas to the den,” said Whittington. “He was likely out on another hunting foray.”

In 2016, two female wolves were killed for public safety reasons after they got into human food and were boldly approaching people in Banff National Park. One of those was the former alpha female. The current breeding female, who was young when her mother was killed, is the only surviving member of that former pack.

It is not yet known how many newborn pups are in the pack, but typically wolves in this area have between four and six. This breeding female, 1701, and breeding male, 1901, have had three litters of pups.

“Wolves in Banff typically den between mid and late April, so the pups at this point in time would be about almost a month old,” said Whittington.

“We’ll get a handle on the number of pups later this spring when they start travelling on the broader landscape. We’ll pick them up on remote cameras and we’ll receive reports of sightings.”

With the death of 1901, the pack is now made up of the breeding female, who is fitted with a conventional VHF collar, two wolves that are two years old, and three yearlings. One of the two-year-olds, a male, is also fitted with a GPS collar.

It’s not yet known how effective the younger wolves are at hunting.

“At this time of year, wolves typically hunt either alone or in smaller groups and come and go from the den,” said Whittington.

“The juvenile wolves sometimes work hard in regularly bringing food back to the den and sometimes they’ll meander off on their own for a few days,” he added.

“At this point, we don’t know exactly if each wolf in the pack was contributing to bringing food to the den.”

The good news is there is plentiful prey in the Bow Valley for the young wolf pack.

“I expect that she’ll still go out and hunt, and typically most wolves in the pack will contribute to looking after the pups,” said Whittington.

“But we actually don’t yet have really good insights into what their pack behaviour looks like at the den site, just because we try to give them space and try not to disturb them.”

The breeding female is savvy as the last surviving member of the previous pack, having learned to successfully navigate the busy and developed Bow Valley.

“It’s been pretty neat to watch how she’s made the Bow Valley her home and how she and the other wolves, including 1901, have learned to navigate the Bow Valley,” said Whittington.

“They’re constantly travelling through wildlife corridors and around the town of Banff hunting, yet people rarely see them; they’re still wary.”

With many elk and deer seemingly in poor shape this spring following a long winter, and with elk calving season underway, it’s hoped the young wolves will have a better chance at hunting success.

“The wolves are opportunistic predators and they will try and predate on whatever is easiest,” said Whittington.

“If deer and elk are in poor condition, they will be more susceptible to predation, so I would guess the wolves would have higher hunting success rates this spring.”

Even though the highway through Banff National Park is fenced, Parks Canada reminds people to be alert when driving through the park.

“Wildlife do sometimes of get onto highway and it’s important to obey speed limits and stay alert for wildlife on our roads,” said Whittington.

Any sightings of wildlife on the highway should be reported to 403-762-1470.

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