MacNulty was one of the authors of a 2014 study published on the peer reviewed website, Public Library of Science. And the reintroduced predators will go out of their way to find their favorite food - and it may not be a matter of taste, but rather their own safety.” USU wildland resources assistant professor Dan MacNulty told the Salt Lake Tribune, “ Elk are the preferred prey of wolves in Yellowstone. We typically think of the phrase, “There’s safety in numbers” when it comes to being safe from predators, but, this strategy also works for wolf packs on the hunt.
New research shows that wolves pick their prey based on the wolf pack size and the terrain. Wolves are social animals and hunt cooperatively in a pack. “Attacking” is the transition from (a) to (b), and “capturing” is the transition from (b) to (c, d). Above: Behavior of wolves hunting bison: (a) approach, (b) attack-individual, (c, d) capture.
