The Ellesmere Wolves : Behavior and Ecology in the High Arctic.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Mech, L. David.

Contributor:

Anderson, Morgan.

Cluff, H. Dean.

Boitani, Luigi.

Language:

English

Physical Description:

1 online resource (304 pages)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Chicago : University of Chicago Press, 2025.

Summary:

In a fascinating story of discovery and science, we meet a remote population of wolves unafraid of humans. For parts of twenty-four summers, wolf biologist L. David Mech lived with a group of wolves on Ellesmere Island, some six hundred miles from the North Pole. Elsewhere, most wolves flee from even the scent of humans, but these animals, evolving relatively free from human persecution, are unafraid. Having already spent twenty-eight years studying other populations of wolves more remotely by aircraft, snow-tracking, live-trapping, and radio-tracking, Mech was primed to join their activities up close and record their interactions with each other. This book tells the remarkable story of what Mech—and the researchers who followed him—have learned while living among the wolves. The Ellesmere wolves were so unconcerned with Mech’s presence that they allowed him to camp near their den and to sit on his all-terrain vehicle as he observed them, watching packs as large as seven adults and six pups go about their normal activities. In these extraordinarily close quarters, a pup untying his bootlace or an adult sniffing his gloved hand was just part of daily life. Mech accompanied the wolves on their travels and watched as they hunted muskoxen and arctic hares. By achieving the same kind of intimacy with his wild hosts’ every action that we might experience living with domesticated dogs, Mech gained new insights into common but rarely studied behaviors like pup feeding, food caching, howling, and scent-marking. After Mech’s time at Ellesmere ended, his coauthors and fellow wolf researchers Morgan Anderson and H. Dean Cluff spent parts of four summers studying the wolves via radio collars, further illuminating the creatures’ movements and ecology. This book synthesizes their findings, offering both a compelling scientific overview of the animals’ behavior—from hunting to living in packs to rearing pups—and a tale of adventure and survival in the Arctic.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Contents

Foreword

Preface

1 Lifetime Highlight

2 The Den

3 Ellesmere Island

4 Living with the Pack

5 The Plot Thickens

6 A Flourishing Family Falters

7 A Whole New Phase

8 Beyond Wolf Behavior

9 South of Slidre

10 Cast of Characters

11 Ellesmere Dens

12 It's All about Pups

13 Many Mouths to Feed

14 Food Caching

15 Big Burly Beasts

16 Hares, Caribou, and Seals

17 The Daily Hunt

18 Divisions of Labor

19 Life at Wolf Headquarters

20 Just for the Howl of It

21 Territoriality and Scent-Marking

22 The Bigger Picture

23 Climate Change

24 Forever Wild

Acknowledgments

Appendix I

Appendix II Species Names

Literature Cited

Index of Names

Index of Subjects

Notes:

Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.

ISBN:

9780226833736

0226833739

OCLC:

1499870176