Would a wolf sleep on the jorney?

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Would a wolf sleep on the jorney?

Post by SophieTheAiredale » Mon Nov 18, 2019 12:17 am

Sorry if this has already been posted, but do wolves sleep on the summer journey? And where would they sleep? Out in the open? In some kind of shelter? And what about the pups? Would they hide in the grass or something? Or are the rendezvous sites almost always within a day's pup-walk? WQ 2.7 Does not tell you if you need to sleep on the journey, in fact, you do not need to sleep at all! I just need to know for a quick story I'm writing. Thanks!
That's a bit odd, don't you think?

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Re: Would a wolf sleep on the jorney?

Post by DaniBeez » Fri Nov 29, 2019 12:14 pm

Hi katlove,

I hunted in the scientific literature a bit to help me answer you more accurately. I came across predominately captive studies at first, but eventually found one about wild wolves that can help us out:
Intermittent aerial observations of 405 radiocollared wolves from November 1968 through March 1989 [i.e., wintertime] showed the following percentages of activity: sleeping, 34%; resting [awake but lying or sitting], 31%; traveling, 28%, feeding, 6%; other [chasing prey, courting, fighting], 2%.
Mech offers this interpretation of his findings:
These results indicate that during winter, wolves in northeastern Minnesota generally were active during the day, but that they spent much of their time resting or sleeping. This conclusion supports the findings ofMech (1966) and Peterson (1977) on Isle Royale and Peterson et al. (1984) in Alaska who found: sleeping, 15%; resting, 24%; traveling, 50%; and feeding, not reported. Whether wolf-activity patterns differ at night or during summer must await application of more refined methods of study (Kunkel et aI., 1991).
Even though these findings are limited to the wintertime and day-only, it does suggest that resting and sleeping are both important and time-consuming components of the average adult wolf's life. With that in mind, I think it's safe to say that wolves will sleep or rest between travel periods, whenever they can afford to.

As for where they rest, adults sleep out in the open, and would only seek a physical shelter if needed for delivering and raising young, vulnerable pups. The adult's coats do a great job of protecting them from wind, sun, snow, and rain! On the journey itself, I think it's reasonable to assume that the pups are under close supervision of the parents whenever possible, and if left alone, it would be in some sort of semi-concealed area where the adults deduce its safe.

I'm not sure about site distance. It may be determined more so by details of the site and surrounding area, than just the distance to get to it. In other words, wolves will probably "go the distance" to get the best site they can, within reason. I didn't look too hard into this, but I think this study will give you some things to work off of for your story:
Abstract: We studied wolf (Canis lupus) selection of 19 den, 10 rendezvous, and 31 resting sites found between 1986 and 2000 in the Biaowiea Forest (Poland). Our objective was to determine whether wolves selected sites far from villages, forest edges, and roads, and whether these sites had dense ground cover for concealment. We also tested whether wolves selected a particular forest type for their den sites. Den and rendezvous sites were located at greater distances from villages, forest edges, and intensively used roads than random points. Locations of resting sites were not affected by these manmade structures. Wolves selected dry coniferous forests for den sites but also used other forest types. We concluded that the suitability of an area for pup raising depended mainly on the spatial distribution of forest, human settlements, and public roads, and to a lesser extent on habitat characteristics.
https://www.nrcresearchpress.com/doi/pd ... 39/z02-190

I hope these findings can inspire your writing!
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Re: Would a wolf sleep on the jorney?

Post by SophieTheAiredale » Fri Nov 29, 2019 7:24 pm

Yes! This will help! Thanks for taking the time to answer this!
That's a bit odd, don't you think?

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Re: Would a wolf sleep on the jorney?

Post by DaniBeez » Sat Nov 30, 2019 3:36 pm

No problem. Good luck with your writing :D !
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Re: Would a wolf sleep on the jorney?

Post by Koa » Mon Dec 02, 2019 8:26 pm

Topic locked as the question has been answered.

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