Recording howls in Yellowstone National Park

One of the members of our consortium, Dr Sara Waller, is helping to record wolf howls in Yellowstone National Park. We are building a system that will allow us to pinpoint the wolves' location by triangulating the calls.

After a VERY cold start, with temperatures of -20C, the winter in the Rocky Mountains has become milder, and Sara's students are tirelessly out in the field, following wolf packs, servicing the recording devices, downloading data, and replacing batteries.

Field experience is a vital part of a graduate student's training - even if it can be a little uncomfortable at times!

 

The wolves will be denning down for the breeding season soon, and it's important that our system is up and running smoothly before then. Howling behaviour declines dramatically once the pups are born, so we have about one month of prime data collection time, while the animals are relatively stationary, but still very vocal.