Upon first glance, it appears to be an homage to pointillism. Thousands of coloured dots dance through valleys, burn sites and rivers upon a familiar topographical map of Jasper. Clusters appear on Cavell Road, along the Snake Indian Valley and the Athabasca River, while lonely dots skirt the perimeter of the townsite. Crimson hues gush through corridors and trickle through campgrounds.

The points on the map represent the dance between predator and prey, following the eternal rhythms of the season. While they are only a sample - a snapshot of a certain point in time - they form the basis for a scientific understanding of one of the park’s top predators.

It is the path of the wolf.

“We get tons of dots on the map and you can start to break down the landscape to determine what is important to wolves,” said Jasper National Park Biologist Layla Neufeld, studying the electronic map. 

Collected through radio-collared data, the dots indicate locations where the wolf has travelled in the park. Waypoints downloaded from collar data are then placed on a map, effectively creating a snapshot of a wolf packs in Jasper National Park. 

But the study of wolves is not completed in isolation. It actually has its roots in caribou research, and the delicate predator/prey relationship that exists.

Wolves occasionally eat caribou, so understanding predation patterns will help protect vulnerable caribou herds as well as learn more about wolves.

“We look at relative use of different areas,” Neufeld said. “We look at predation rates -  How they travel on the landscape... it allows us to look at caribou risks from a wolf perspective.”

That can mean showing how close wolves like to travel near water, burn sites or campgrounds. It also helps determine when wolves use certain trails. For example, Neufeld said wolves prefer valley bottoms, but use higher elevation trails in the winter. It also shows how wolves will use human-made trails at night, but are weary of people for the most part.

The data will be the basis for future management decisions, but currently, Parks Canada is mostly concerned about how wolf numbers affect prey.

“The main impetus for the wolf program is caribou monitoring,” said Neufeld. “The more we understand how wolves use a landscape, it can help us think about what is natural and what can we do.”

The wolf program has produced concrete data about the wolves through radio collaring and killsite analysis. While caribou struggle to survive on the landscape, wolf numbers are healthy in the park, Neufeld said. Staring at dots on a map is a far cry from staring into the yellow eyes of the lone wolf, however it offers biologists a chance to study behaviour at a very precise level.

The park has three wolves for every 1,000 kilometres, and an estimated 50 wolves in total. Neufeld says by extrapolating computer data, it is possible to predict where wolves are likely to hunt, travel and den. 

However there are overarching factors that determine wolf movement. 

“Ultimately what affects what wolves are selecting is prey,” Neufeld said. “If an area has good prey, they will select it.”

Biologists have collared three packs – the Signal, Sunwapta and Brazeau packs - which have the potential of preying upon caribou. A break-off pack, called the Cavell pack, was also tracked this winter, however recent data suggests it may have merged with the Sunwapta pack after their male was found dead in the Astoria River. While caribou aren’t a main source of food for wolves, they are still potential prey, and there are areas where the two species cross paths.

On top of the collared wolves, the park is home to another four or five packs (Devona, Snaring and others), plus several lone wolves. Each pack has between two and six members approximately, however it’s difficult to judge exact numbers. Bed counts are completed in the winter, where the number of indentations in the snow is measured, 

“We rely on sightings an kill search work in the winter. Often you go to bed sites and you can count the number of beds,” Neufeld said.

But there is no easy way to estimate wolf populations.

“Wolves are the most notorious species to count,” Neufeld said. “An average wolf pack is between four and six, however there are odd occasions when they join for a short time. We’ve seen that before.”

Neufeld said wolf populations in the park are healthy, as they are displaying regular behaviour: breeding, eating a variety of prey, conflict (two collared wolves were killed this year, likely by other wolves) and dispursal. This is a far cry from the 1950’s, when wolves were nearly completely eradicated from the park. In the 1840s, The Hudson’s Bay company began poisoning wolves, thus beginning more than a hundred years of persecution. It wasn’t until the 1960s that killing wolves became illegal in the National Park, and the numbers began to rebound. Wolves, it was soon learned, could help control the elk population, which was threatening to graze the park into a desert. Elk were thought to have disappeared in 1911, but 81 animals were introduced to the park in 1920 from Wyoming. They flourished. 

“We stopped suppressing wolves and found an equilibrium,” Neufeld said.

But while Parks Canada continues to monitor the elk/wolf predator prey dynamic, other factors are creeping up. White tailed deer are becoming much more prevalent in the park, and Neufeld said deer now make up 40 per cent of a wolfs’ diet.

“Wolves are eating three deer to every elk,” Neufeld said. “Those are the two most important prey species.”

Biologists often speak about ecosystems in terms of biomass, and Neufeld said in those terms, three deer are about the equivalent of one elk. However at this time, not much is known about white tailed deer in Jasper National Park, other than the fact that since they first were sighted in 1940, their numbers have been growing - and elk numbers have been declining. While Neufeld says they aren’t sure what is causing these changes, she is cognizant it could change the predator/prey dynamic in the park. When one animal changes or is introduced, it can have a cascading effect throughout the ecosystem, she said.

On the map, a cluster of red dots often indicates where a deer or elk was taken down by a pack of wolves. By studying how these species move in relation to one another, danger zones can be determined, Neufeld said, which can be used to predict kill sites. Parks can then make management decisions based on this information, such as the closure of Cavell road during three winter months.

There are a number of reasons wolf numbers fluctuate in the park – many of which are natural. According to Neufeld, territory, food and breeding are the three necessities of life for a wolf, and a lone wolf will often roam hundreds of miles to find those elements. While within the park, wolves are safe from hunting and wolf culls - a danger Neufeld says awaits them outside park boundaries.

Also posing a threat are highways and railroads. Each year, several wolves are struck and killed by trucks or trains, Neufeld says, but the number doesn’t appear to be high enough to affect populations at this time. Unlike grizzly bears, whose mortality rate can be directly correlated to proximity to roads, there are several factors that affect a wolfs’ ability to survive.

“We have a few wolves a year killed by trains or trucks. It doesn’t seem to be declining the population. Wolves use those corridors. Pups can be susceptible to that,” Neufeld said.

While the future of wolves appears to be bright for now, it is constantly in need of updates. While populations are steady now, that can fluctuate. Neufeld said in the early 2000s, wolves stopped having pups, which raised alarm bells. Outside of the park, wolves are killed to protect caribou populations, something Parks Canada officials in the past have said is unlikely in Jasper.

The wolf program will continue for a few more years, as long as caribou funding flows to the mountain parks, Neufeld said. The next wolf count won’t take place until the winter, but in the meantime, Parks is continuing to gain a better understanding of wolves an their relationship with the landscape.

“They are an iconic species that people are committed to,” Neufeld said.