hunting yellowstone wolves
Trent Consultants News Lobos lose their predators Edge In midlife, a study
Trent Consultants News: While most of wolves in Yellowstone National Park live up to the nearly six years of age, their ability to kill prey peaks when two or three, according to a study led by Dan MacNulty and published online recently in Ecology Letters.
The study appears in the print edition of the magazine in December.
The finding challenges the strong belief that wolves are predators of success for their adult life. Now it seems like human athletes, are just on top of his game by about 25 percent of the time. It also shows that the physiology may limit predation.
"Wolves are not perfect predator" MacNulty says, a post-doctoral researcher at the School of Biological Sciences Department of Ecology, Evolution and Behavior. "lack of features natural to kill their prey quickly, so rely on athletic ability and strength, which decreases with age. They're like the 100-meter sprinters. Must be in the best position to carry out. "
By comparison, mountain lions, with their noses short, powerful muscles and retractable claws, are designed to kill, MacNulty said. Not surprisingly, they live and hunt alone.
In the Yellowstone wolves, they hunt in packs, moose depend for survival. The finding is timely because the park population is declining moose and the wolves are blamed for being. Wolves were hunted out of the area in the early 1930 and reintroduced in 1995. But the study shows that there is a strong correlation between the number of wolves in the park and the number of elk killed.
MacNulty said that the number fluctuates based on the age structure of the wolf population at any given time. The higher the proportion of wolves more than three years of age, the lower the rate at which they kill the elk. For every 10 percent increase in the proportion of wolves more than three, the death rate fell from 10 to 15 per percent. Notes that the decline in the moose population can also be attributed to drought and Grizzly Bears.
"Wolves are not the only factor limiting the population of Yellowstone elk, "said MacNulty.
When older wolves can no longer hunt successfully younger lions share his death with them, as MacNulty described as a version of Social Security lupine. While a high proportion of old to the young wolves can benefit elk, which could strain the wolf population because there are not enough workers to support retirees.
Montana legalized hunting wolves after be removed from the list of endangered species in 2007. Although hunting is prohibited in the park, roaming packages beyond the limits of the Wolves radio-marked have been killed. MacNulty says that hunting will not endanger the species, but it actually distorts the younger population of wolves, which could mean more deaths, not less, for the moose.
MacNulty became a field biologist in Yellowstone after graduating from the University of Colorado in 1995, the year wolves were reintroduced, and focused her doctoral studies in predatory behavior. It has continued to follow the wolves of Yellowstone as a researcher University of Minnesota postdoctoral Craig Packer, the world's leading authority on the lions.
MacNulty next step is the creation of mathematical models to study the long-term effects of fluctuations in the age structure of the Yellowstone wolf population in the moose population. Its contributors include Douglas Smith (Centre Yellowstone Resources), Juan Vucetich, Michigan Technological University) David Mech (U.S. Geological Survey Survey) Daniel Stahler (Yellowstone Center for Resources) and Craig Packer (University of Minnesota).
Adapted from materials provided by target = "_blank"> University of Minnesota.
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