Field Reports

December 21, 1995--Wolf pup killed by truck

A delivery truck returning from Cooke City, Montana, struck and killed one of the eight wolf pups born to the Rose Creek Pack last spring.

The death occurred in the Lamar Valley after dark, near the Buffalo Ranch inside Yellowstone National Park.

The male pup was one of those born to the Rose Creek Pack's alpha female just after her mate was shot and killed last spring near Red Lodge, Montana.

The female and her eight pups were subsequently relocated back to the Rose Creek enclosure behind the Buffalo Ranch in the Lamar Valley. They were fed and released this fall. A male wolf from the Crystal Bench pack dispersed from its pack and bonded with the alpha female. The Rose Creek Pack now has nine members--two adults and seven pups.

The delivery truck driver will not be charged with a violation.

There is irony to this accident; Yellowstone Park is presently closed because of the government shutdown and traffic is light. However, the road through the park to Cooke City, Montana, is kept open all year, even during the shutdown, because it provides the only outside access to residents of Cooke City during the winter.

December 20, 1995--Soda Butte pack returns to Yellowstone

The Soda Butte Pack, which recently killed a hunting hound near Fishtail, Montana, has returned to Yellowstone National Park.

The wolves were spotted eating an elk they had killed near the Yellowstone Park boundary near Cooke City, Montana. This places them at considerable distance from any domestic livestock. They went to Fishtail via the Stillwater River and apparently returned the same way.

The Soda Butte Pack appears to have become very familiar with the Stillwater River as a route to the mountains, plains, and farmlands of the Beartooth Front. They spent much of the summer in, or near, the Stillwater River. This is mostly a scenic and rugged area in the designated Absaroka/Beartooth Wilderness. The Stillwater does eventually flow out of the Wilderness into farmland near Nye, Montana. At this point the wolf pack has access to many miles of foothill country along the north side of the Beartooth and, further west, Absaroka Mountains.

The pack killed the small hunting dog on Dec. 8 near the West Rosebud River road. The next day they were located at the Red Lodge ski area on Red Lodge Mountain about 15 miles to the east.

There was worry that the pack might spend the winter along the Front rather than in Yellowstone Park. The park is presently closed to the public due to the budget battle and partial government shutdown. Wolf monitoring is continuing, however.

December 12, 1995--Reintroduced wolves kill hunting dog

The Soda Butte Pack recently moved north from Yellowstone into the Beartooth Mountains, down the Stillwater River where they had spent the summer, and out onto the Beartooth Front facing Montana farmland.

A hunting dog, trained to hunt mountain lions, strayed from its owners while on a walk near Fishtail, Montana, on the West Rosebud road early Friday morning (Dec. 9). The dog, one of two walker hounds, took off up a trail. One of its owners tried to follow his dog. He heard a growl and a roar and soon found his dog dead. An aerial tracking flight had located the wolves in the area that same day. Wolf-sized tracks were all around the dead dog.

Animal Damage Control officials who investigated the incident reported that the dog had been trailing a mountain lion when it surprised the wolf pack.

At last report, the pack was still outside Yellowstone in the foothills of the Beartooth Mountains. A Montana Fish and Game spokesman said, "I wouldn't be surprised if they [the wolves] stayed where they are. There's a lot of deer where they are." Yellowstone Park spokesmen said they hoped the pack, which consists of five adults and one pup, would come home.

Since the wolves were reintroduced to Idaho and Yellowstone Park, this is the first confirmed kill of a domestic animal by the wolves.

Biologists had predicted a small number of domestic livestock and pets would eventually be killed by the wolves. Under the reintroduction guidelines, those wolves that attack pets twice in a year will be captured and removed. Yellowstone spokesman John Varley said the definition of a pet may not include a hunting dog that pursues wolves on its own.

December 11, 1995--Service and tribe locate wolves

The Nez Perce Tribe and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service have issued their first joint report on the whereabouts and activities of the reintroduced Idaho wolves. The Nez Perce tribe is officially cooperating with the recovery because the Idaho legislature prohibited the Idaho Fish and Game Department's participation.

Wolf B2 has spent quite a lot of time near the town of Salmon, on Salmon River Mountain, which rises abruptly to the west. B2 is in a heavily roaded area (dirt roads) where there is a large population of deer and elk. During hunting season, a hunter observed three wolves in the UP Lake area north of Salmon. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said that B2 was in the area but didn't have information on the other two wolves. The second may have been B11 (see below). The other wolf or wolves may have been dispersing wolves, not related to the reintroduction.

Wolf B11 was lost to trackers after July 25, when she was in west central Idaho. In mid-October she was located many miles to the east in the Bitterroot Range of the Beaverhead Mountains (not to be confused with the Bitterroot Mountains just west of Hamilton, Montana). This high, jagged range rises to the east of Salmon, Idaho. It is the Idaho/Montana border and the Continental Divide. Since then she has crossed the Salmon River Valley a number of times and has been seen by motorists along Idaho Highway 28 near Baker, Idaho, and U.S. Highway 93, 10 miles south of Salmon. She was observed swimming the Salmon River and she was also radio- tracked in the rural subdivisions just south of town. She appears to have molested neither livestock nor pets, but some Salmon-area ranchers are calling for her relocation.

Since the last Idaho update, Wolf B12 has traveled from the southern end of the Frank Church Wilderness, near Stanley, Idaho, northward to the middle of the Selway/Bitterroot Wilderness, about 100 miles.

Wolf B15 has been in the Kelly Creek drainage north of the Selway/Bitterroot Wilderness for some time. She may be with wolf No. 9013, which is dispersed from Glacier National Park. If this is so, it is an important development.

Wolf B14 has not been located since July 15. B14 was last located in the Lochsa River drainage near U.S. Highway 12. The Lochsa River is just north of the Selway/Bitteroot Wilderness and the highway is presently closed in the aftermath of the rain, flooding, and mudslides that have devastated the northern Idaho backcountry.

Wolves B6 and B8 remain paired near the southern boundary of the Frank Church Wilderness.

Wolves B9 and B16 remain paired in the Chamberlain Basin country--the most remote part of the Frank Church Wilderness.

B4 remains in Rock Creek (in Montana over the hill from Missoula). B4 has been there all summer.

B5 and B10 (paired?) have been in the Blue Joint Meadows area of Montana just over the Idaho line for the last several months. This is a wild area adjacent to the Frank Church Wilderness.

B7 was last located in the Payette National Forest (western Idaho) on July 15. B3 was last located March 8 in the Bitterroot Mountains west of Darby and Hamilton, Montana. It is assumed that B3's radio collar failed, the wolf wandered out of the reintroduction area, or is dead.

B13 was killed near Salmon last January 29.

It appears that none of the reintroduced wolves was killed during the recent hunting season.

November 30, 1995--Private contributions rescue recovery program

Despite a lack of funding from Congress to bring a second round of wolves from Canada to Idaho and Yellowstone National Park, private contributions have come to the rescue of the reintroduction program.

Ed Bangs, the coordinator of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's wolf reintroduction program, has announced that three private organizations have given the Fish and Wildlife Service $40,000. The three groups are Defenders of Wildlife, the Idaho Wolf Education and Research Center, and the Yellowstone Park Natural History Association.

In addition, the British Columbia government is donating staff time. (The wolves reintroduced last year came from Alberta; this year, they'll come from British Columbia.) Finally, the makers of the wolf-tracking collars are giving the Park Service a 30-percent discount and a camera company has donated a truck.

Senator Conrad Burns (R-Montana) had tried to kill the program by cutting the wolf program appropriations by 40 percent. His cut passed the Senate committee in an unrecorded vote and was later adopted by the House in the conference committee version of the Department of Interior appropriations bill.

The conference report on the Interior appropriations bill has since been rejected by the House twice, although not because of the reduction in the wolf program funds.

Burns' cuts and the continued deadlock in Congress threatened this winter's scheduled transplant of about 30 more wolves.

The government's plan for Yellowstone and the central Idaho wilderness is to bring 30 more wolves each year for a total of five years. Because of the great success of the wolves this year, Bangs said wolf recovery has been faster than expected.

The salvation of this year's reintroduction plans "will save taxpayers millions of dollars," according to Bangs. He said that if wolves were not brought to America, reliance on natural dispersion from Canada would take much longer and cost more in the long run.

November 29, 1995--Wolves face their first winter in Yellowstone

Yellowstone National Park's reintroduced wolf packs are beginning their first winter of freedom, and biologists are optimistic that they will fare well.

After spending much of the summer in the high country to the north and south of the their reintroduction site, the Lamar Valley, all of the wolves have recently returned to the Lamar.

There are 22 of them, 13 from the original release last winter, and nine pups born since. Eight of these were born to the Rose Creek female whose mate was shot last spring near Red Lodge, Montana. One pup belongs to the Soda Butte Pack.

Biologists are optimistic that the wolves will stay in the Lamar Valley all winter and not migrate northward out of the park into the farmland and subdivisions that are filling the Paradise Valley between the Park's North Entrance and Livingston, Montana.

During mild winters in Yellowstone, most of the vast elk herd stays the entire winter in the Lamar. In hard winters, a substantial number migrate west toward Mammoth Hot Springs and then north to the Park's North Entrance at Gardiner, Montana, and beyond.

Yellowstone Park biologist Norm Bishop is optimistic that the wolves will stay in Yellowstone this winter regardless of the weather. During a mild winter there are plenty of elk in the Lamar for the wolves to kill. During a severe winter there is even more meat, in the form of winter-killed elk. Why would wolves leave such a pantry?

Of course, wolves don't necessary do what we expect. For example, during Thanksgiving weekend, all of the wolves suddenly left Yellowstone. Two packs went north into the Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness, but the third pack went northeast into the Clark's Fork Valley, where there are scattered ranches and summer homes as well as deer and elk.

Since then, all have returned safely to the Lamar.

The wolves haven't shown the territorial hostility that packs often show. This might be explained by the abundance of food in the park. The ranges of three packs in the Lamar overlap.

They are all aware of each other's presence, however; and wolf No. 8 from the Crystal Bench pack recently joined widowed wolf No. 9 from the Rose Creek pack to replace wolf No. 10, the pups' father who was shot dead by Chad McKittrick.

The only negative interaction observed to date came recently when the Rose Creek pair, No. 8 and No. 9, were observed chasing another wolf from the Crystal Bench pack away from their pups. The chase lasted about a quarter-mile.

So far, the winter in Yellowstone has been mild and wet, and the park awaits the transfer of about 15 more wolves from British Columbia.

November 7, 1995--Alpha male joins orphaned pups

Of the three wolf packs reintroduced to Yellowstone National Park last winter, the Rose Creek Pack seemed ill-fated.

It was the smallest of the packs--just three members.

Each of the packs had been named for the location of the enclosures that held them for three months while they adjusted to their new environment, and, as it turned out, used the time to mate.

When the wolves were freed in early spring, the three-member Rose Creek pack soon split up. Its young female remained in the northern part of Yellowstone Park, but the large alpha male and female crossed the 11,000-foot Beartooth Mountains through snow 25 feet deep. About to give birth, the two wolves began to look for a den in the foothills next to civilization on the outskirts of a tourist town--Red Lodge, Montana.

Before the wolves had dug their den, the 120-pound male was shot and killed by a Red Lodge resident, Chad McKittrick.

Without a den, the female, soon to be nicknamed "Murphy Brown" by the wolf biologists, gave birth to eight pups beneath a pine tree on ranch land close to Red Lodge.

Concerned that the female would not be able to care for her pups alone and very near a busy town, biologists recaptured her, as well as her pups, and returned them to the Rose Creek enclosure behind the Lamar Ranger Station in the park.

They stayed in the enclosure all summer and part of the fall, being fed roadkill, while the larger Crystal Pack attracted thousands of tourists as they chased down elk, confronted grizzly bears, killed coyotes, and romped around the park's Lamar and Pelican Valleys.

A third pack, the Soda Butte pack, soon retreated northward into the recesses of the Beartooth Mountains in the Stillwater River country, where they were seen hardly at all. This pack had one pup, while the Crystal pack had none.

Much of the wolf reintroduction's future rested on Murphy and her eight pups. But she couldn't teach them how to hunt in the pen. How would they be fed when they were released? Would the pups be killed by bears or their mortal enemies, the coyotes? Would the pack become too dependent on humans?

The biologists fed the pups well. They wanted them as large and healthy as possible upon release.

In late July a windstorm blew trees across the Rose Creek fence, allowing half the pups to escape. Two were eventually recaptured and put back in the pen. The others remained nearby. All shared the roadkill deer, elk, and bison, and they grew steadily.

The wolf recovery team was uncertain when to release them. September and October were hunting season outside the park. Rose Creek is only a few miles from the Yellowstone boundary, and many were concerned about rifle-toting wolf opponents.

A large grizzly bear finally forced the release. Attracted by the carrion, the bear began to hang around the pen. Biologists released the wolves October 10. They promptly left the area. The grizzly was not to be seen.

Since the release, Murphy and her pups have done very well. Park biologist Mike Phillips recently said, "You couldn't have written a better script."

Murphy and her pups scavenged enough food. They fed on a bison that had died, probably of natural causes. They ate the remains of an elk that was probably killed by a grizzly.

Then they met the Crystal Pack.

Wolf #8 from the Crystal Pack, a subordinate male in his second year, saw an opportunity to improve his status. He joined Murphy (now again just Wolf #9). He is the new alpha male, sharing the task of feeding the eight pups, with whom he gets along well. "They roll all over him, licking his face--they think he's the greatest," park biologist Philips said.

Perhaps to celebrate, the new alpha male joined his mate and killed a bull elk. The seemingly unlucky Rose Creek pack became the Yellowstone's largest, with 10 members and more likely by next April.

Chad McKittrick awaits his sentence--perhaps several years in prison and a $100,000 fine. Did he unintentionally do the wolf reintroduction program a favor by forcing the removal of the wolves from the Red Lodge area?

October 19, 1995--Widowed female and pups released

On Tuesday, October 10, the widowed female wolf and her eight pups were released from their holding pen in Yellowstone National Park.

The female wolf had given birth to the pups under a tree near Red Lodge, Montana, last spring, shortly after her mate was shot by Chad McKittrick, who is being held for the shooting. Originally called the Rose Creek Pack, the female and male alphas and a second-year daughter had been released in the park in March after being brought to Yellowstone from Alberta along with two other wolf packs--the Crystal Pack and the Soda Butte Pack. Since that time the two other packs have prospered, but of the two, only the Soda Butte Pack had any pups (just one).

The Rose Creek female and pups were recaptured at Red Lodge, placed in their original holding pen and fed roadkill deer, elk, bison, etc., from the park. On the average, one large animal is killed on Yellowstone roads a day.

In August, during a brief visit to Yellowstone, President Clinton and his family helped feed the penned wolves.

Meanwhile, in Washington, D.C., Montana Sen. Conrad Burns has labored to kill off the wolf program. He successfully got the program cut by 40 percent in the Interior Appropriations bill. The president has said he will veto that bill when it hits his desk because of its many anti-environment provisions, although he did not mention the wolves when he threatened his veto.

The wolves were released because biologists felt the pups were big enough to help the female wolf kill food. Three of the pups have been outside of the pen since late August when a wind-toppled tree temporarily tore open the enclosure. They have stayed nearby since. The three pups did prevail in one encounter with coyotes.

The wolves will be allowed to leave on their own time; park personnel simply left the gate open.

Since the pups have never learned to hunt for food, it is unclear how they will manage in the wild. But the overabundance of elk in Yellowstone will hopefully make up for their lack of experience.