HOME-RANGE, ACTIVITY AND MOVEMENTS OF A WOLF PACK IN CENTRAL ITALY

Home range, habitat use, activity and movement patterns were studied i n a pack of wolves in a mountainous region of Abruzzo, central Italy f rom June 1986 to March 1987. The home range, estimated by the minimum convex polygon from 421 radio locations, measured 197 km(2) and compri sed several infrastructures and areas of human presence, including fou r garbage dumps and two offal sites. Core areas, calculated by the har monic mean method, were located toward the centre of the home range wh ere human disturbance and road density were lowest but forest cover wa s highest. During the time-span of the study, home-range use and movem ent patterns suggested a marked centrality in spatial behaviour and tr aditionality in retreat areas year-round, both during pup-rearing seas on and the following months. In addition, by being essentially nocturn al, resident wolves appeared to adopt tactics of temporal segregation from people to exploit food resources safely in the proximity of human settlements. Overall activity correlated with distance travelled (r = 0.90, P much less than 0.001), and corresponded to cyclic nocturnal m ovements from retreat to feeding areas. wolf movement rate between 20: 00 and 04:00 h averaged 2.5 km/h but varied up to about 8 km/h, and da ily distance travelled ((x) over bar = 27 km/night; range 17-38 km/nig ht) mostly depended on the location of traditional feeding sites. Home -range configuration, habitat use, activity and movements all appeared highly integrated so as to represent the most functional compromise b etween avoidance of human inteference and exploitation of the availabl e food resources.