Catching Up with Karl-Antoine: A Grey Wolf Update

Karl-Antoine Hogue has been working hard this summer, documenting the activity of grey wolves, caribou, and moose!

Earth Rangers, I’m so excited to share my last report with you – it’s been such a busy time for me! I’ve been working hard with the Vuntut Gwitchin First Nation Land Guardians to document grey wolf activity in their Traditional Territory. One important thing you should know about grey wolves: they’re not easy to observe. I bet you’re wondering: if you can’t find them, how do you know what they’re up to? Great question! The answer is: game cameras.

Game cameras detect motion and take pictures of an animal as it passes by. We have a large network of game cameras, so we’ve been able to gather a lot of really useful information about wolves, caribou, and moose. And we got some great pictures! Check out some of my favourites:

So, with all the useful information the game cameras gather, we’re able to learn about the inner workings of a wolf’s life. We’re particularly interested in how wolves use the Old Crow Winter Road and how that road impacts the ecosystem here.

As you might know, grey wolves play a really important role: they’re apex predators. They eat animals like caribou, moose, and hares (among others) and they help to keep ecosystems in balance.

What we’ve discovered (so far…there’s still lots of data to analyze!) is that wolves tend to like to use the Old Crow Winter Road, while other animals, like caribou and moose, do not. Now we have to ask ourselves the most important question: why is that?

The answer is: we don’t know for sure (yet). But our hypothesis (that’s our best guess, based on the data we have) is that the road offers wolves an easier way to travel and better hunting opportunities. We hope to investigate more in the future, and to look into how human activity along the road affects grey wolves.

I really love what I do and I can’t wait to continue to work with the Land Guardians. Earth Rangers, I hope you find a job you love one day. Who knows? Maybe I’ll see you up north sometime in the future!