Wolves in the Rocky Mountains are restricted to valley bottoms by rugged topography and deep snows.

Valley-bottom towns, such as Jasper, may deter wolves from productive habitat and inhibit their movements among valleys.

This project used snow-tracking over 1500 km to build a predictive model of wolf habitat and movement corridors by comparing the habitat characteristics of wolf paths to random paths that were generated in a GIS.

The model revealed that wolves avoid areas of high trail and road density.

Such a model can aid strategic planning of future development in Jasper.