Skip to main content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Testing global positioning system telemetry to study wolf predation on deer fawns

January 1, 2007

We conducted a pilot study to test the usefulness of Global Positioning System (GPS) collars for investigating wolf (Canis lupus) predation on white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) fawns. Using GPS collars with short location-attempt intervals on 5 wolves and 5 deer during summers 2002-2004 in northeastern Minnesota, USA, demonstrated how this approach could provide new insights into wolf hunting behavior of fawns. For example, a wolf traveled ???1.5-3.0 km and spent 20-22 hours in the immediate vicinity of known fawn kill sites and ???0.7 km and 8.3 hours at scavenging sites. Wolf travel paths indicated that wolves intentionally traveled into deer summer ranges, traveled ???0.7-4.2 km in such ranges, and spent <1-22 hours per visit. Each pair of 3 GPS-collared wolf pack members were located together for ???6% of potential locations. From GPS collar data, we estimated that each deer summer range in a pack territory containing 5 wolves ???1 year old and hunting individually would be visited by a wolf on average every 3-5 days. This approach holds great potential for investigating summer hunting behavior of wolves in areas where direct observation is impractical or impossible.

Publication Year 2007
Title Testing global positioning system telemetry to study wolf predation on deer fawns
DOI 10.2193/2006-382
Authors D. J. Demma, S. M. Barber-Meyer, L. D. Mech
Publication Type Article
Publication Subtype Journal Article
Series Title Journal of Wildlife Management
Index ID 70000572
Record Source USGS Publications Warehouse