Winter Home Range Of Eastern Inner Mongolia Wolf (canis Lupus)

The wolf is a widely populated species in the world. Nevertheless, with the increasing deterioration of its habitat, it has been threatened with extinction. Wolves have been listed as II species in the appendix of CITES. Currently wolves are merely populated in a few regions in Northeast and Northwest in China. Home range for a wolf (Canis lupus) pack in the prairie of eastern Inner Mongolia was studied in the winters of 2004 and 2005. With snow tracking method, 107 and 194 location data were separately collected in the two winters.The main achievements of this essay are listed as following:Wolf's home range was estimated by the use of "Home range" and "Special Analyst" extension from Arc View GIS 3.2. By using 95%Minimum Convex Polygon method in the computation of wolf pack for its home range size, the area obtained was 309.839 km~2 in 2004 winter and 291.161km~2 in 2005 winter. In two years the region area the wolf pack used has not had a remarkable change.In using 95% Fixed Kernel model to calculate home range size of the wolf pack, the area obtained was 129.239km~2 in 2004 winter and 264.325km~2 in 2005 winter. In two years the wolf pack has a obvious change in the utility distribution. In 2005 winter the utility distribution had a displacement tendency to the Periphery Sand dune.Tangential method was used to estimate the home range core in 2004 and 2005 winter on the "probability of use and percentage of home range" curve. When the Kernel valued seventy percent, the area was found to be the most densely used region, which was exactly the home range core. The home range core area was 23.992km~2 in 2004 winter and 59.783km~2 in 2005 winter. In 2004 winter there was a single home range core, whose center was the arid reed pond. In 2004 winter there were double home range cores centered respectively with the arid reed pond and the sand dune.Result of principal component analysis showed that the first 3 principal components explained 81.343% of the total variance among all habitat variables. According to absolute value of coefficient, the 3 components were classified separately as safeguard factor, climate factor and food frangibility factor.