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Full-Text Articles in Animal Sciences
Wolf Predation: Where And How Wolves Kill Beavers, And Confronting The Biases In Scat-Based Diet Studies, Thomas Gable
Wolf Predation: Where And How Wolves Kill Beavers, And Confronting The Biases In Scat-Based Diet Studies, Thomas Gable
All NMU Master's Theses
Beavers can be a significant prey item for wolves in boreal systems but how wolves hunt beavers is largely unknown. I inferred how wolves hunt beavers by identifying 22 kill sites using clusters of locations from GPS-collared wolves in Voyageurs National Park, Minnesota. Where wolves killed beavers varied seasonally with the majority (58%) of kills in the spring occurring below dams and on shorelines while the majority (80%) of kills in the fall were near feeding trails and canals. I deduced that the typical hunting strategy has 3 components: 1) waiting near areas of high beaver use until a beaver …