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large an area as possible, remote camera traps should be set up at least 1 kilometer apart from each other.
Barring compelling circumstances to move a camera quickly, camera traps should be left installed for at
least one month.
After 1 month, consider moving the camera trap to a new location to increase our coverage of the area.
However, it is not uncommon for a wolf to go several months before returning to a specific part of its
home range. If there has been a lot of other carnivore and ungulate activity at a promising location,
leaving the set for up to two months could be appropriate. Another consideration would be the quality
of other available locations to move the camera trap to.
Consider setting two different types of camera traps in your area, perhaps one using an imported
attractant and the other not, or using a different attractants at each location. This variation can help
detect wolves in areas where one scent might work better than another for local wolves.
Considerations for Documenting Breeding Status and Numbers
The primary goal of CWMP remote camera teams is typically, at least initially to document presence of
wolves in an area. Once this has been established, the project may wish to address additional questions
such as residency of the animal or animals, breeding status, and actual numbers of wolves in a pack.
Camera traps set to simply detect wolves may also incidentally help answer these more detailed
questions. However, there are several considerations to help design camera traps to help answer these
questions.
Resident versus transient wolves
Resident wolves will localize their activity in a specific home range and carry out scent marking and
other territorial behaviors in the vicinity. Establishing a territory is typically associated with pairing of an
adult male and female animal and eventually leads to the establishment of pack including sub adult
animals. Transient, dispersers are typically solitary and may be documented in an area once and then
never again. Camera trapping efforts over a period of months that document wolves repetitively and
document more than one wolf suggest that the wolves are resident in the area and likely to be
attempting to reproduce in the general area. Camera traps that document scent marking behavior such
as raised leg urinations, over marking of one animal on top of another's scent mark, scratching after
defecation or urination are behaviors suggestive of resident rather than transient animals.
Camera traps set in locations where scent marking behavior would be predicted and using scent lures
which might induce marking behavior from resident animals should be considered to help collect
information on potentially resident wolves.
