Danske ulves ( Canis lupus lupus ) døgnaktivitetsmønster studeret med brug af vildtkameraer:Diel activity patterns of wolves ( Canis lupus lupus ) in Denmark, assessed from wildlife camera survey
Despite that grey wolves ( Canis lupus lupus ) have successfully recolonized cultivated landscapes in Western Europe, information on their activity patterns in such settings, based on systematically collected data, remain scarce. We assessed diel activity patterns of wolves in Denmark during 2013-19...
| Main Authors: | , , |
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| Format: | Article in Journal/Newspaper |
| Language: | Danish |
| Published: |
2019
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://pure.au.dk/portal/da/publications/danske-ulves-canis-lupus-lupus-doegnaktivitetsmoenster-studeret-med-brug-af-vildtkameraer(02cee16c-d9ac-4e82-9ed1-e80482713be8).html https://pure.au.dk/ws/files/182537208/Thorsen_et_al_2019_Flora_Fauna_125_1_11.pdf |
| Summary: | Despite that grey wolves ( Canis lupus lupus ) have successfully recolonized cultivated landscapes in Western Europe, information on their activity patterns in such settings, based on systematically collected data, remain scarce. We assessed diel activity patterns of wolves in Denmark during 2013-19, based on 435 time and date stamped recordings from wildlife cameras (50 reported from private citizens, 385 from cameras mounted to survey wolves), mainly in the Ulfborg territory where Denmark’s only current wolf pack resides. The proportion of observations from daylight and of high quality was significantly higher in recordings reported from privates than from wolf survey cameras, probably because citizens were relatively less likely to recognise and report information from glossy images recorded at darkness. For cameras designated to survey wolves, the primary activity period lasted from 20:00 to 08:00 (75% of observations). By comparison, wolves were seven times less active in terms of recordings per hour between 10:00 and 18:00 (7% of all observations). The diel hourly distribution of observations was similar for periods of short day length in November-January (duration 7h55m-9h41m) compared to the long days of May-July (14h50m-16h33m), indicating that daily activity patterns more closely followed the clock than actual periods of daylight. There seemed to be one peak in activity before/around midnight and another peak around dawn. Wolves were significantly more active during darkness than by day, but the ratio varied between social groups: 2:1 for a pack with pups, 5:1 for lone wolves and 20:1 for newly established pairs without pups (controlled for March 21 when the duration of daylight and darkness are equal). The observed activity patterns conform to a behavioural strategy that minimizes overlap with human activities, but which may also reflect the activity patterns of their prey. |
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