Interesting fact about Alaskan wolves...

sharkathmi

sharkathmi

New member
Greetings All,
This post is inspired by an earlier post called Real Big Wolf.
I used to live in Kenai Alaska. While living there I got to know the Kenai Peninsula's head game biologist, Ted Spraker (ret). I had read something in a magazine that sounded wrong to me. Before I repeated this alleged fact, I went to Ted's office and told him what I heard and asked for his opinion.
Before I get to that conversation I want to ask you a question. It's a five element question. They are:
1 - State wide (Alaska)
2 - Wolves kill
3 - [how many]
4 - moose and caribou
5 - every day.

In a sentence:
State wide, wolves kill [how many] moose and caribou every day?

After some guesses, I'll finish the story.

Thanks,
Mark
 
Quote:
put me down for 203 caribou, and 48 moose.


/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/laugh.gif Put me down for 204 caribou and 49 moose.

Seriously, I would say between 400 and 600.

But I can tell this is going to be an interesting thread already. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif
 
A moose is a lot of food, so I say 25 meeses and about 45 caribouses, or is it 25 mooses and 45 caribisis?
 
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Maybe I better go back to my original assertion.

Okay shark, when are you gonna tell us? /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/confused1.gif
 
OK...I'm back.

I read in "Alaska" magazine that statewide wolves kill 1000 moose and caribou EVERYDAY. I took the magazine to Ted's office and showed him the figure and asked him to confirm or debunk this outrageous number.

And he did. He stated that 1000 moose and caribou was a slightly LOWER number than their estimated figures. He had the conclusion of a study that they had just completed on his desk. It was about 500 pages thick! They made there calculations two ways. One way was they knew an approximate number of wolves throughout the state. They know how much meat a wolf requires to stay healthy. Extrapolating that out they came to 1100 moose and caribou per day. They did the calculations another way, but I can't recall the details of that on. I think it had to do with they had an approximate population of moose and caribou and calculated it backwards, based on current moose/caribou population.

Another interesting fact is wolves are only one of the predatory animals that chase these critter. Bears, both black and brown, kill the calves as the hit the ground, so to speak. Meals of opportunity. A small calf wouldn't go very far for a pack of wolves. Wolves primarily seek out the yearlings that have just been kicked out and abandoned by the mother. A much larger meal to share.

So, Ozzy, you nailed it as far as the magazine article went. In reality, that number is still a bit low.
Congrats Ozzy!! Did you have a hunch or was it a SWAG?

Thanks for readin'.

Mark
 
Pulled it from the air, you said statewide was the clue. Thanks. Actually I had a halfwolf as a pet years ago and he ate me out of house and home. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif
 
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I am hearing that 80-90% of our game up here is eaten by predators. Makes you wonder about the wolf/ grizzly bear reintroductions in the 48 contiguos states. Naturaly anytime that F&G tries to manage them we hear from PETA and Co. about how unethical it is to kill anything useing an airplane, bait, especially if anyone other than a F&G employ is the trigger puller.
Our hunter success rate for big game in the populated parts of the state are very low. This is due to the predators and the fact that there is less summer and of course the plants are the base of the food chain. There are actually quite a few moose in Anchorage and around some of the other population centers due to the reduced number of large predators. Thankfully there has been effort to manage wolves and in some cases bears under the last 2 govenors but the one before them really hurt us.
 
As for "wolf kills", I find that number pretty high. I know sometimes, a coyote will go 3 days without hunting or eating. Specifically hunkering in from a long drawn out snow storm, with bitter harsh winds following. I suspect wolves aren't much different, as to how often they actually need to kill or eat.

As for estimating. Many things are either factored in or left out. As to actually how accurate the estimate truely is.

I seen 85 coyotes last season for eg;. In reality it was more closer to 22 or so IMHO. That I could specifically identify, by their size, pelt coloring markings & the territory they held.

Back to the wolves. An old school friend of mine. Use to raise & breed different speices of wolves. She told me, her wolves would sound off & get a reply around 9 miles[as the crow flys] away. To her friend's pen raised wolves. That were near another small town on an acrege.


My old school friend, also told me. Her wolves would howl when they scented a roadkill deer a few miles away. From her acrege. They did that whenever there was a dead deer nearby, according to her.

These communications lead me to blieve, even different wolf groups in different area's. Communicate for various reasons. Food, I suspect being one of them.
 
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WELL IN IDAHO WE HAVE BETEEN 800 TO 1000 WOLVES AND THEY ARE EATING US OUT OF HOUSE AND HOME THEY SEAM TO HAVE A THING FOR OUR ELK WHERE THE WOLF NUMBER ARE HIGH THE ELK NUMBERS ARE CRASHING I HUNT THE CLEARWATER AND THEY ARE JUST KILLING THE [beeep] OUT OF THE ELK THE IDAHO FISH&GAME SAY THAT WE HAVE 100,000 ELK (STATE WIDE) AND SENCE THE WOLVES NUMBER ARE UP OUR ELK NUMBERS ARE GOING BACKWARD BY 10% AYEAR AND IN THE CLEARWATER THEY ARE DROPING BY 20%
 
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