Coauthor Irina Rotenko
In the previous post we presented videos about digging of a burrow-den by two wolf couples, both having pups, and taking one of the litter in this prepared den, where the pups stayed several days.
Then at the distance about one km within homesite about 20 hectars we registered a united stay of the two breeding couples (including the Torn Ear female that was largely mentioned before), their put together pups and a pup-sitter that perhaps is a subordinated (relative or non-relative) female.
According to some visual observations of the united family, while they were relocating, the total number of pups was 11-13.
While the wolf families stayed in the 20 hectare homesite, the pups, being 80-90 days old, walked up to 2 km away from the homesite centre alone or in groups 2-5 pups without any parents. This free walking behaviour of pups in so early days old was registered common in July. Respectively, when the parent wolves bring food in their stomachs, only few pups that appeared nearby were fed. They were registered with full bellies, whereas other pups were registered with almost empty stomach. All the pups ate bilberries a lot.
Dear Vadim, dear Irina,
your findings described in this report about the size of the homesite and the exploration behavior of young wolf pups coincide with our observations of wolf families in Saxony and Lower Saxony in 2019 and 2020. For many weeks during pup raising time wolf families used a very small homesite. Several times very young pups were seen or registered by wildlife camera ranging alone some distance from the center of the homesite.
Warm regards
Udo
Dear Udo, thanks a lot for your interest to wolves and our blog. We feel you as a true our colleague in the wolf study and always are happy, when see your reaction on our new publication.
Good luck with wolves and warm regards from Navusts’