Gadgetory

in the Alaskan wilderness a hungry Wolverine picks at the carcass of a moose it is likely unaware that the wolves that killed this moose are nearby a camera scientist place near the kill site records everything it's a rare look at how wolves survive in an untouched ecosystem here we are in Alaska's Denali National Park to find out what technology scientists and other employees here are using to track wildlife Denali is six million acres of wilderness largely unchanged by humans due to its remoteness the wildlife here caribou dall sheep moose and their main predators bears and wolves make up a rare intact ecosystem and a unique living laboratory for biologists park staff have been tracking Denalis grey wolf since 1986 in an ongoing effort to better understand their behavior there are an estimated 75 wolves in Denali separated into nine packs because of the size of the park tracking them can be very difficult trail cameras are an effective way to keep an eye on them without physically being there scientists placed this one at a wolf kill last February it also caught other predators feeding there as the day's wore on park wildlife biologists trekked through the park off trail to locate dens and set up the durable motion and heat sensing cameras designed to withstand temperatures as low as negative 40 degrees they attached them to trees pointing directly at dens that were recently active hoping the same pregnant female will return the following year to give birth or that a new pack will find it and use it the cameras are battery-powered and don't connect to a cell tower or a Wi-Fi network they're completely off the grid and the team returns to the site once a year to retrieve the SD cards replace the cameras and review the footage what they find helps them gather additional data about pack behavior how many pups were born and more other wolf tracking is even more hands on the team fits one to three wolves from every pack living in the park with weatherproof battery-powered GPS collars each collar provides the coordinates of a wolf's last-known location within the last four hours along with GPS data the collars are also outfitted with radio transmitters Park wildlife biologists use a radio tracking antenna to determine if there are any wolves nearby when they're out doing field work the range is roughly three to four miles but it's reception depends on the terrain all of this data together helps the National Park Service better understand an elusive species not just wolves travel patterns in and around Denali but also their ecological significance in the park and how they respond to climate changes in one of the wildest places on earth you