WHAT A DAY!! We reached our fundraising goal AND had >1,000 people donate in the past 9 hours, which secured an extra $10K for the project. Amazing stuff and we are, as always, super thankful for the thousands of folks who have and continue to support our work. Much of our work has only been possible because of tremendous donor support, and so thank you to the donors who make it possible. Without your support, our project simply wouldn’t be what it is today. If you still want to support the project or want a sticker you can donate at the link below. Once we close the link to this fundraiser in a few weeks, the sticker will not be available. Thanks again everyone for the incredible support! Donations can be made here (everyone who donates gets a sticker as a thank-you!): crowdfund.umn.edu/campaigns/…

Just need 41 more folks to donate and we unlock $10,000 for the project! A donor said they would donate $10K if we get 1,000 people to donate by the end of the day...and we have already had an incredible 959 people donate! So help us secure $10K by donating here: crowdfund.umn.edu/campaigns/…

Only need 283 folks to donate TODAY and we unlock an extra $10K for our project!! Any size donation works! A donor said they would donate $10K if we get 1,000 people to donate by the end of the day...and we have already had a whopping 717 people do so!! Help us unlock some big $$$ for the project by donating here: crowdfund.umn.edu/campaigns/…

Only need 656 folks to make a donation of any size TODAY to our annual fundraiser (link in bio) to unlock an extra $10K for our project!! A donor said they would donate $10K if we get 1,000 people to donate by the end of the day...and we have already had 344 people donate in the past 2 hours (AMAZING!)!!! Help up keep things rolling and donate here: crowdfund.umn.edu/campaigns/… A little bit from a lotta folks goes a long ways!

BIG NEWS! A donor said they would donate **$10,000** if we could get 1,000 people to donate to our annual fundraiser today (and today only!)! Any sized donation ($5, $10, $25, etc.) counts towards that…we simply need folks to show us a little love today! So if enjoy our work and outreach, send us a donation at the link below and help us unlock some additional large funding! Donate here: crowdfund.umn.edu/campaigns/…

Only 36% to go to now to reach our fundraising goal! Been a great week and many generous folks have donated! If you enjoy our content and value our work, help us keep it going by making a donation. Any size ($10, $25, etc) is a huge help because many small donations have a HUGE impact. We have >600,000 followers so only take a small percent to donate to raise a lot of support! So help us finish this thing off and donate here: crowdfund.umn.edu/campaigns/… Oh, and you get a cool sticker for donating as well!

Interesting footage of a bear visiting a wolf den this spring—a very close call for the pups who were outside the den literally a few minutes before the bear showed up. The bear’s behavior was quite interesting as well. Almost as if it knew it had stumbled into an area it shouldn’t have. Interestingly, we have captured several instance of bears visiting and checking out active wolf dens over the years. However, we have never captured evidence that bears have killed pups, though there was once such report from Wisconsin recently. This footage was only possible because of the generous folks who have donated to our project and supported our trail camera work. We are just 38% away from our annual fundraising goal, and need your help to finish it off. If 1% of the >600,000 folks who follow our project make a small donation ($10, $25, $50), we will reach our goal. A small donation from a lot of folks generates huge support for our work. Donate at the link below and help us to capture and share more footage like this! Donate here: crowdfund.umn.edu/campaigns/…

Some incredible footage of two wolves killing a beaver this April in Estonia. Now, you might be wondering: why on earth are we sharing a video captured more than 4,000 miles away on a different continent? The reason is to illustrate that beavers are important prey for wolves in a variety of ecosystems across the Northern Hemisphere. When we share our research on wolf-beaver interactions, folks sometimes think wolves hunting beavers is a unique quirk of the wolves in our area, not something that happens in many other areas. But the reality is, across large expanses of North America and Europe, beavers are important prey. For instance, studies have found that beavers constituted a substantial portion of the diets of wolves in many areas including Poland, Latvia, Lithuania, Belarus, Northwest Territories, Alberta, Manitoba, British Columbia, Quebec, Ontario, and Alaska. Obviously, the extent to which wolves rely on hunting and killing beavers likely depends on many factors such as the size of beaver populations and other prey populations. However, the lack of research on the topic leaves the question unanswered. Indeed, the relationship between wolves and beavers has received very little attention because it is a difficult relationship to study, and because most wolf-prey studies focus on how wolves hunt, kill, and impact socially-important ungulate species like moose, deer, elk, and caribou. For more than a decade, a large focus of our research has been to understand the complex and fascinating relationship between wolves and beavers. Such work is without a doubt the most intensive research ever undertaken on this predator-prey relationship. Although our work has provided many insights, we have many questions to answer still, some that will take many more years to answer. The answers to these questions are not just relevant to our small little corner of Minnesota, but to a large swath of the northern hemisphere where wolves hunt and kill beavers routinely. To continue this research, we need donor support because donors are one of our biggest sources of funding. If you value this kind of research and want it to continue, please make a donation here: crowdfund.umn.edu/campaigns/… Lastly, huge thanks to Janek Joab who captured this incredible footage and allowed us to share it on our social media. Absolutely incredible stuff!

The largest pack in the Greater Voyageurs Ecosystem this past winter: the Blackstone Pack. Nice of them to give the camera a few nibbles on their way by! If you enjoy videos like this, we need your help because almost all of our trail camera work is supported by donors. This footage was literally captured because of donors. We simply need folks who enjoy such content to make a small donation ($10, $25, $50) to our project at the link below to help us cover the costs associated with keeping 350-400 trail cameras going year round. $30 purchases batteries for a camera, $200 purchases a new camera set-up. Think about it: most people regularly pay $10-20 per month for Netflix, Hulu, etc. so those companies can create endless content and make money. All we are asking for is $10-20 a year to help us cover our costs, and keep this work going so we can share it with everyone. Of course, the main point of the cameras is wolf research (and now, a little cougar research on the side) but cool footage of wildlife is a byproduct of having so many cameras out. So help us out and donate here: crowdfund.umn.edu/campaigns/…