Measures of Space use and Association of Two Unrelated Male Red Wolves in a Shared Area

Abstract

The United States Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) listed the red wolf (Canis rufus) as an endangered species in 1967 and began a recovery program in 1973 (USFWS 1989). By that time, however, the red wolf had already been extirpated from most of its range (McCarley and Carley 1979). Only 1 wild population of red wolves currently exists, reintroduced in 1987 to the Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge (ARNWR) in northeastern North Carolina, U.S.A. (USFWS 1989). Most research on the red wolf has addressed its status as a species (e.g., Wayne and Jenks 1991; Wilson et al. 2000; Kyle et al. 2006; Murray and Waits 2007). Ecological studies have been limited by small sample sizes or duration (Mauney 2005; Hinton 2006; Chadwick et al. 2010; Hinton and Chamberlain 2010) or by VHF telemetry data collection that is infrequent and limited to daytime observations (Phillips et al. 2003). Although GPS and VHF radio collars are used to monitor the population, intra-group spatial relationships are largely undocumented. Red wolves form groups consisting of the breeding pair and their sexually immature offspring (Phillips et al. 2003) and offspring from previous years have been observed as helpers at the den (Sparkman et al. 2010). Unrelated wolves of the same gender have not been previously reported in the same group. In this study, 2 unrelated male red wolves using a shared area were monitored 5 times per day for 12 months using GPS collars. The purpose was to determine if the non-breeding male was a member of the group composed of the breeding male and his mate, an uncollared female. We hypothesized that association between the males would be high if the non-breeder was a member of the group, whereas there would be no significant association if the nonbreeder was simply using the same area. If the unrelated non-breeder was a group member, this represents a unique pack composition that has not been studied in this species. Methods