Silenced Heartbeat

The inevitable happened last month when I was flying wolf patrol, monitoring collared animals by listening to radio signals on a direction finder in the airplane. Instead of hearing the steady sound of a signal indicating a live animal, I heard the quickened pulse of the mortality signal. My own heartbeat raced as I asked myself if this was my imagination, and that really I was hearing a normal signal. The answer came within minutes as I circled over a wolf hidden in the brush and trees below the plane. The signal suddenly resumed its steady chirp, chirp, chirp echoing the strong steady beat of a healthy heart. I breathed a sigh of relief.

I flew the rest of my territory, picking up the signals from other wolves, and returned to the airport to file my report. The next day the supervisor of the wolf management program called and asked questions about the signal that had changed from mortality to life while I circled. He was very concerned, and told me that the mortality signal kicks in only after a 4-hour period of absolute lack of motion of the collar - even a wolf's breathing keeps the collar activated. My heart sank again. Apparently, scavengers working on the carcass could re-activate the collar's live signal. The supervisor asked for another flight.

Weather precluded a flight for almost a week, with fog and low clouds hanging in the area. Finally, an afternoon opened up enough to allow a patrol. My husband, acting as an observer in the back seat of the little two-seat airplane we use for patrol, picked up the wolf's signal as we approached the area where we had last located her. It was the steady chirp we had been hoping for, but as we got closer to the signal, we began to worry again. It became apparent that the wolf had not moved from the spot where we had heard her the week before. We made some position notes, and once again returned to the airport.

After the supervisor heard the report, he was still concerned. A wolf does not hang around on the same turf for that long a period. Hunting prey is a constant occupation, and it is not unusual to find a wolf or wolf pack traveling 30-40 miles in a week. We were asked to repeat the exercise again as soon as possible.

Fog once again stymied our flight for 4 days. We finally took a chance one afternoon when the low clouds parted over the airport. As we flew to our patrol area, I kept looking back over my shoulder to make sure we had a clear return route. The clouds appeared to be thickening again, and I was nervous about our predicament. I could, however, see some small grass airstrips in a clear area of the valley, good enough for emergency use, so we proceeded. The bad news soon hit us - once again we picked up the mortality signal in the same area, and this time it never changed its fast beat. With heavy hearts, we headed back to our home base.

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