A Predator on the Doorstep: Kill Site Selection by a Lone Wolf in a Peri-Urban Park in a Mediterranean Area

SIMPLE SUMMARY: Wolves are known for their cooperative hunting behaviour, which has been thoroughly studied. On the contrary, little is known about lone wolves’ hunting strategies. Between 2017 and 2019, we monitored a lone male wolf living in a Mediterranean coastal area. The wolf settled in a protected estate where both wild and domestic ungulates were available as potential prey. His predatory behaviour was recorded through a combination of camera trapping and active search for kill sites and prey carcasses. Features of kill sites were modelled to test for selection by the wolf. The main prey resulted to be fallow deer. The wolf avoided dense habitats to hunt and usually attacked his prey in open areas where the presence of fences could support him in constraining and successfully killing deer. The prey body condition, estimated as the percentage of fat content in the bone marrow of hind legs, was above the average of the population, suggesting a high efficacy for the lone wolf hunting strategy but also the adoption of a high-risk feeding strategy by deer. ABSTRACT: The aim of the study was to assess which kill site characteristics were selected by a lone wolf living in a protected Mediterranean coastal area near the city of Pisa, Italy, where both wild and domestic ungulates were available as potential prey. Between 2017 and 2019, we monitored the wolf’s predatory behaviour through a combination of camera trapping and active search for kill sites and prey carcasses. The main prey found was the fallow deer (n = 82); only two wild boars and no domestic ungulates were found preyed upon. The features and habitat of kill sites were modelled to test for selection by the wolf. The habitat type of kill site was composed of meadows and pastures (89.3%), woods (7.3%), degraded coastal areas (1.9%), roads and rivers (1.1%), and marshes (0.5%). We calculated their distance from landscape features and ran a binomial generalised linear model to test the influence of such landscape variables. The distance of kill sites from landscape elements was significantly different from random control sites, and a positive selection for fences was found. In fact, the wolf pushed fallow deer towards a fence to constrain them and prevent them from escaping. We also analysed the body condition of predated fallow deer as a percentage of fat content in the bone marrow of the hind legs. Our results revealed the selection of the lone wolf for deer in good body condition. This is a possible outcome of the habitat selection shown by fallow deer in the study area, where fenced open pastures are the richest in trophic resources; therefore, our findings suggest a high efficacy for the lone wolf hunting strategy, but also the adoption of a high risk feeding strategy by deer. This study suggests that a lone predator can take advantage of human infrastructures to maximise its predatory effectiveness.