Picture from: http://www.nwf.org/graywolf/
Don’t forget to get the number under the top cover to find the
Wildlife Linkages Tracking Challenge.
Some people recommend long pants because of the stinging nettle.
There are no wolves in our area, but if you look west from the cache, you can see it would be a good area for them.
This is one of 6 animal tracking caches (plus one more) that is placed on tracking, which are:
- - - Bear Tracking, Mountain Lion Tracking, Bobcat Tracking, Wolf Tracking, Jaguar Tracking, & Coati Tracking.
You must sign the log or your find will be deleted.
Driving: From I-19, take exit 22. Go south on west Frontage Road. Go right (west) onto Camino Ramanote at N 31 28.666 W 111 00.253. Stay on Camino Ramanote--do not go onto Calle Teruno. At N 31 28.332 W 111 03.090 go straight and cross a cattle guard onto Forest Road 4191, a good dirt road. Cache is not far off the dirt road.
Note:The criteria I am trying to adhere to in placing the tracking caches are:
1. Can drive to it by car.
2. Is off I-19.
3. Is easy to walk to.
4. Is near an area where one can look for animal tracks or signs.
If I place a tracking cache and find a better placement later, I might move it.
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Wildlife Linkages Program, run by Sky Island Alliance, looks for routes Cougars, Bobcats, Bears, Wolves, Jaguars, and Coatis take when they go from one mountain range to another. The mountain ranges are linked by the routes these animals take. The routes (linkages) are found by looking for the animals' tracks in washes between the mountain ranges. Read more at: Sky Island Alliance http://www.skyislandalliance.org/wildlife.htm.
At Sky Island Alliance, we go out and identify animal tracks, we don’t track the animal.
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Wolf Info :
As this cache is placed in Arizona, it will focus on the Mexican Gray Wolf. There is also the Timber Wolf that lives in the northern area of North America and the red wolf that lives in the southeastern area of the United States.
Size – The Gray Wolf weighs 30 to 55 pounds (lbs).
Range (where they live) – The Mexican Gray Wolf lives in Arizona and New Mexico.
Food (diet) – Wolves live on a variety of animals including elk, deer, coyotes, moose, caribou, beaver, rabbits and other small animals.
Population (how many are there?) – There are about 7,000 to 11,000 wolves in Alaska and about 5,000 in the lower 48 states. There are about 200,000 wolves in the world. It is estimated (guessed) that there are about 50 Mexican Gray Wolves in Arizona, New Mexico and Texas. Reintroduction is on-going but appears is not successful at this time.
Life span (how long do they live?) – The Gray Wolf lives 7 to 8 years in the wild.
Other information – The wolf is the largest member of the canine (dog) family. Wolves are very social which means they live and hunt in packs with 4 to 7 wolves in a pack. Each pack has a leader called the alpha male. Wolves often hunt at night and travel from 20 to 40 miles in a single evening. Wolves communicate with each other using different howls.
Story
The wolf pup pricked up his ears, pattered out of the den,
and followed his father down the slope.
They jogged through the lush grasses to the bank of the
Lamar River in Yellowstone National Park.
There they came upon the carcass of an elk their pack had felled.
The wolves were back!
The pup watched his father eat.
Then he, too, tore off a bite.
Two ravens stuffed themselves.
A golden eagle carried off food for her eaglets.
A grizzly bear sat nearby waiting for the wolves to leave so she could eat in peace.
Three magpies snatched quick bites.
Mice chewed on calcium-filled antlers.
Two sexton beetles buried a piece of meat to eat later.
The valley was sharing food again.
The wolves were back.
Read more about the wolves returning to Yellowstone National Park in the book:
The Wolves are Back by Jean Craighead
This book is in the Pima county public library.
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Wolf Print:
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<---Wolf Print
(Track is not the right size)
The real size of a wolf's front track is about
3 3/4 to 5 3/4 inches long and 3 to 5 inches wide.
The front track is larger than the rear track.
The top of the toes are usually even. The bottom pad usually has 1 lobe on the top and 2 lobes on the bottom. The claws are usually shown in a track.
On the two outer toe prints, the inside is often close to a right angle rather than rounded print.
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Wolf Signs
Another way to identify an animal is by its signs that they leave
like scent marking (scat), trails through grass, scrapes on the ground,
scraches on trees, shelters (caves, holes in trees or the ground) or a dead animal.
Wolves leave shelters and scat.
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Wolf Tracing
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<---There is a stencil in the cache that you can use to trace on paper and take. Please excuse the rough stencil. Please do not take the stencil.
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Read more about wolves at:
Gray Wolf: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gray_Wolf
Gray Wolf: http://www.defenders.org/wildlife_and_habitat/wildlife/wolf,_gray.php
International Wolf Center: http://www.wolf.org/wolves/aboutus/aboutus.asp
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There is a 7th cache called Wildlife Linkages Tracking Challenge.
Don’t forget to get the number in each animal cache under the top cover
to find the Wildlife Linkages Tracking Challenge.
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