The home range of most Alaskan packs includes 200 to 800 square miles during the winter. The ranges of neighboring packs tend to overlap slightly in winter and substantially in summer. Wolves that depend primarily on migratory caribou may abandon their home range for a while and travel long distances. Wolves normally breed in February and March and litters averaging about five pups are born in May or early June. Most female wolves first breed when 22 months old but usually have fewer pups than do older females.
Wolves have a high reproductive rate.
Nearly all of Alaska's wolf packs raise at least one litter of four to seven pups successfully each year. Most mature females come into heat and breed every year and, in some cases, two or three females in a pack produce litters. Because they generally produce many pups, most populations can sustain harvests of 25-40 percent annually. With lower harvests, most populations can increase, unless food is scarce. In Alaska most wolf populations sustain harvests of from 10 to 30 percent.