The general procedure for this study was to attempt to capture an intact
pack of wolves in Minnesota, fit each animal with a radio-collar
(Cochran & Lord 1963), release them in northern Michigan, and follow
their fate through aerial and ground radio-tracking (Kolenosky and
Johnston 1967).
A pack was selected from an area near Ray, Minnesota (Fig. 3), south of
International Falls (48 deg. N Latitude, 93 deg. W Longitude), where wolf
hunting and trapping were legal. Two male and two female wolves were
captured by professional trapper Robert Himes, under contract for the
project, between December 24, 1973 and January 21, 1974 (Table 2). Three
of the wolves were trapped (Fig. 4) in No. 4 or 14 steel traps (Mech
1974), and one (No. 13) was live-snared (Nellis 1968). If these animals
had not been solicited for this study, they would have been killed and
their pelts sold, as part of the trapper's livelihood, before the
Endangered Species Act of 1973 took effect.
[Illustration: _Fig. 3.--Capture and release points of the translocated
wolves_]
At capture each wolf was immobilized with a combination of phencyclidine
hydrochloride (Sernylan) and promazine hydrochloride (Sparine)
intramuscularly (Mech 1974), with dosage recommendations from Seal et
al. (1970). They were then carried out of the woods (Fig. 5), held in
pens in Minnesota, and fed road-killed white-tailed deer, supplemented
with beef scraps.
[Illustration: _Fig. 4.--Wolf caught in trap (Photo by Don Breneman)_]
[Illustration: _Fig. 5.--The captured wolves were drugged and carried to
an enclosure in Minnesota (USFWS Photo by L. David Mech)_]
There is no certain way of ascertaining that wolves are related or that
they belong to the same pack. Thus to maximize chances that members of
the same pack would be captured, the trapper set traps where he
suspected only one pack ranged. To try to determine whether the
individual wolves he caught were socially related, we instructed the
trapper to hold the wolves in individual pens until we could observe
their introductions to each other. Wolves No. 10 and 11 were placed
together on January 23, 1974, and No. 13 and 14 were released into the
pen with No. 10 and 11 on February 4.
[Illustration: _Fig. 6.--Before being transported to Michigan, each wolf
was weighed (USFWS Photo by Don Reilly)_]
_Table 2. Background information on the translocated wolves_
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Wolf Number 10 11 12 13
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Sex F F M M