Wildlife researchers plan to use a digital speaker-recorder system to count and keep track of wolves in Idaho.
The Howlbox system will howl and researchers hopes wolves will howl back, The New York Times reported Wednesday.
David Ausband, a research associate at the University of Montana Cooperative Wildlife Research Unit, said spectrogram technology will allow scientists to identify how many individual wolves have responded. The newspaper said four Howlboxes will be placed in remote areas in June, when packs gather with their spring-born pups.
Copyright 2008 by United Press International
Related stories:
Snuppy, first cloned dog, becomes a father: SKorea researchers
Snuppy, the first cloned dog, has become a father after the world's first successful breeding involving only cloned canines, South Korean researchers said Thursday.
Wolves would rather eat salmon
Although most people imagine wolves chasing deer and other hoofed animals, new research suggests that, when they can, wolves actually prefer fishing to hunting. The study, published today in the open access journal
BMC Ecology, shows that when salmon is available, wolves will reduce deer hunting activity and instead focus on seafood.
Loss of Wolves Causes Major Ecosystem Disruption at Olympic National Park
(PhysOrg.com) -- Olympic National Park was created in 1938, in part “to preserve the finest sample of primeval forests in the entire United States” – but a new study at Oregon State University suggests that this preservation goal has failed, as a result of the elimination of wolves and subsequent domination of the temperate rainforests by herds of browsing elk.
Big predatory mammals such as felines need between 5 and 7 different types of prey to meet their dietary needs
Faced with earlier studies stating that the big predators such as tigers, lions, and lynxes fulfil their dietary needs by eating one or two types of prey, scientists from the University of Malaga assure us now that felines need from 5 to 7 different types of prey to fulfil their dietary needs, although they may be more specialised anatomically than the canines (wolves, dogs?) who can obtain 100% ingested biomass by eating three types of prey. This study brings new keys to the paleoecology of the big predators from the past, such as sabre-toothed tigers.
Doctors can unmask deceptive high-risk breast tumors using genetic profile
A unique genetic signature can alert physicians to high-risk breast tumors that are masquerading as low-risk tumors, according to research at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and collaborating institutions. Although these tumors are apparently estrogen-receptor positive — meaning they should depend on estrogen to grow — they don't respond well to anti-estrogen therapy.
Did a Significant Cool Spell Mark the Demise of Megafauna?
The end of the Pleistocene Epoch was marked with steadily warmer temperatures and the great ice age glaciers that covered vast areas of North America were in retreat.
Which came first, social dominance or big brains? Wasps may tell
There’s new evidence supporting the idea that bigger brains are better. A study of a tropical wasp suggests that the brainpower required to be dominant drives brain capacity.
Are wolves the pronghorn's best friend?
As western states debate removing the gray wolf from protection under the Endangered Species Act, a new study by the Wildlife Conservation Society cautions that doing so may result in an unintended decline in another species: the pronghorn, a uniquely North American animal that resembles an African antelope.