The life and times of a lonely GPS wolf

Noppe was seen by hardly anyone even though he wandered across the entire country in search of a mate

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By Tapio Mainio in Lapväärtti
     
      "The wolf is over there, a couple of kilometres away", German biologist Alexander Kopatz, 30, explains. He is heading for the woods with his earphones on, south of Kristiinankaupunki in Lapväärtti. The distance to the shore is only a few kilometres.
      The young wolf, who has been named Noppe, received a tracking collar in Nurmes one year ago. At the time, the ten-month-old Noppe was a strong and sturdy package: he weighed 40 kilos and measured 76 centimetres to the shoulder. At that age, male wolves normally weigh 35 kilograms, and females only 25.
      Kopatz is a wolf tracker employed by the Finnish Game and Fisheries Research Institute (RKTL). He has tracked the movements of Noppe, who has moved to Western Finland, every day since last summer. Kopatz sleeps in a trailer and moves when the wolf does.
      "It seems that Noppe will remain permanently in the Lapväärtti region. He has roamed an area of one thousand square kilometres since the beginning of this year", Kopatz says. One thousand square kilometres is the normal size of a wolf's territory.
     
Noppe has enjoyed his stay in the area even more after he met a female wolf. The couple has hunted elk, deer and a couple of dogs together.
      Kopatz inspects the wolves' tracks, faeces, and other waste that gives an indication of what the wolves have eaten. He avoids any contact that would disturb the animals.
      "That pair hunts for even the bigger elk really skilfully", Kopatz says almost proudly.
      The researchers are interested in how the wolves behave in the farmland area of Western Finland, which is quite densely populated.
      Young wolves leave their packs at around one year of age, when new pups are born.
     
The goal of the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry is for wolves to spread to a larger area than where they presently live. The majority of Finland's 150 wolves live in Kainuu and Northern Karelia.
      The Ministry has delegated the tracking of the animals to RKTL. The process has already produced new information on the migration of young wolves. Researchers previously believed that wolves follow the patterns of the earth's surface when wandering, but this perception has now been changed.
     
"Wolves avoid towns  and even highways. Not many people saw Noppe even though he travelled an average of forty kilometres a day last summer, through Central Finland to the west coast", researcher Ilpo Kojola from RKTL points out.
      Kojola explains that only a small number of wolves grab pet dogs from their yards. A special taste for dogs is common among wolves from the Russian side of the border, but rare for Swedish wolves.
      In Finland, incidents of dogs being killed by wolves have been reported in Juva, Kuhmo, and Ilomantsi. Kojola believes the habit may be a learned model that is passed on from one wolf to another.
     
Kojola and his colleagues have monitored the movements of wolves and bears for the past six years with the help of transmitters in the animals' collars.
      Noppe was one of the first wolves to receive a next-generation GPS collar. It records the wolf's location every four hours.
      "When seven locations have been saved, the collar's GPS phone sends the data in a message to a computer. This helps preserve the collar's battery", biologist Samuli Heikkinen explains.
      "The GPS collars provide valuable information on the wolves' movements at night. Wolves tend to avoid people, but during the night they venture close to towns", says researcher Salla Kaartinen. She is preparing her doctoral dissertation at the University of Oulu on how young wolves respond to towns and the human environment.
     
The signal from Noppe's GPS collar was lost near the end of last year, but luckily the traditional radar continues to transmit a weak VHF signal. Kopatz located the signal in the vicinity of Kristiinankaupunki.
      In good conditions, the signal from a wolf collar can be picked up over ten kilometres away. The animal can be easily located when the signal is detected from two points in the forest. The wolf then stands where the two signals cross.
      As tracking equipment is under constant development, researchers will be able to receive even more accurate information on the life of the carnivores in the near future.
      "A camera attached to a bear's neck, and then hooked up to the internet, has been tested in the U.S. Then you can see what a bear eats in the woods", Kojola says.
      A reliable measurement from the U.S. also revealed that a wolf can wander a distance of 900 kilometres during a period of one year.
     
The common perception in Finland is that wolves come from the East, but that is not the whole story. There is also some movement from the West to the East. For example, Saturnus, a wolf from the Sotkamo area equipped with a collar, wandered over the Russian border and clearly into Russian territory last summer.
      Sweden's wolves were shot into extinction in the 1970s, but the animals returned in 1991. According to DNA evidence, two of the wolves that arrived in Sweden were of Finnish or Russian origin. Their offspring form the country's current population of around one hundred wolves.
      Kojola believes that the wolves wandered the immense distance to Southern Sweden via Haparanda in the North. It is unlikely that the animals would have crossed the sea in the winter when it is iced over.
     
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 6.4.2004

More on this subject:
 Wolf collars now worn by 14 animals
 Police tried to shoot Noppe's mate

TAPIO MAINIO / Helsingin Sanomat
tapio.mainio@hs.fi