Wolf Mojmir and the Jelovica pack
We’ve been following the Jelovica wolf pack for the second year in a row. We found that in 2021, four wolves from the previous year remained in the pack. These are alpha male and female, a female from the 2020 litter and an older male with an injured and healed right front leg (visible in the video). Also in 2021, we detected pups in this pack, and we recorded four of them with camera traps. They were present mostly in a rather small area, mainly in the area of the Železniki and Nomenj-Gorjuše Hunting Clubs.
In October, when we believed that the pups were big enough, we activated our box traps again and on October 13, 2021, we captured and fitted with a GPS-collar a 26 kg male, a pup from the 2021 litter. We named him Mojmir, after his surprisingly calm response during the catch. Until November, the cubs stayed near the so-called “rendezvous” area, with food brought to them by older members of the pack. To better assess the status of the pack; such as the number of cubs and adults, we set up some additional cameras in this area, but Mojmir skilfully evaded them. On November 19, 2021, however, he was finally caught by the private camera of a hunter Matjaž from Železniki Hunting Club.
In November, the youngsters became more and more active and started to follow the older members of the pack. By November 30, 2021, their home range was about one third of the home range of the pack. Unfortunately, after that, we no longer got a signal from Mojmir’s collar. We are still looking for the reason, but we hope that it is a collar malfunction, or the wolf took it off in a place where there is no GSM signal, or it is under snow where no signal is currently available.
We have already checked the area with VHF receivers, but unfortunately, we have not found the collar. The automatic cameras did record a group of wolves, but we were unable to identify Mojmir among them (the recordings are relatively short (2-5s) due to low temperatures and empty batteries). Despite the thick snow cover, wolves still occasionally stay in the same area.
