A Project of Sage Steppe Wild
Wired Magazine. Monkeys Don’t Go For Music — Unless It’s Made for Them. By Hadley Leggett
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Dr. Ralph Maughan is professor emeritus of political science at Idaho State University. He was a Western Watersheds Project Board Member off and on for many years, and was also its President for several years. For a long time he produced Ralph Maughan’s Wolf Report. He was a founder of the Greater Yellowstone Coalition. He and Jackie Johnson Maughan wrote three editions of “Hiking Idaho.” He also wrote “Beyond the Tetons” and “Backpacking Wyoming’s Teton and Washakie Wilderness.” He created and is the administrator of The Wildlife News.
Comments
I am currently reading a book entitled “The Better To Eat You With” by Joel Berger. The basic synopsis of the book is that he, along with a few helpers, tries to determine whether prey animals are naturally afraid of predators or if this a learned trait. Berger totes around a stereo along with recordings of natural predators wolves, coyotes, etc. As a control he uses recordings of ambient sounds like running water. His primary study animals are moose and elk.
I have not finished just yet and I would not want to give away the conclusion but I wouldrecommend reading it.
I photographed a pack of wolves in Alberta three years ago and spent some time howing with them. Bighorn sheep in the area did not even raise their heads when the wolves howled and continued grazing. Mule Deer bolted from the trees and headed for the high contry. I suspect elk would react like the deer did.
I have seen a herd of cattle (on private property) that had been harassed by wolves running out of the pine trees into an open pasture when they heard wolves howl nearby.
Dr. Berger (“The Better to Eat you with”) did find that Yellowstone elk became very worried when he played the howls, but the elk in Rocky Mountain NP and Estes Park, CO who have never seen a wolf ignored the howls completely.
All bison ignored the wolf howls completely.
Berger wanted to test the Wyoming elk just south of Yellowstone. This was at the time wolves were just reoccupying that country. He wanted to see if they had already learned to fear the howls. A lot of his study is how fast wolf-naive ungulates learn to fear wolves. However, Mike Jimenez wouldn’t allow the project to go forward. According to Berger, Mike Jimenez, whose permission he needed, couldn’t be bothered with the time it took.