New wolf pack north of Challis, ID?

and other Idaho wolf news

1-15-2003

Wolf biologists in Idaho  have identified what might be a new wolf pack north of Challis in East Central Idaho, or it might be the reconfiguration of other packs. At any rate the pack has from 10 to 11 members. Five black and 5 gray wolves have been consistently seen in the Morgan Creek area. The wolves have been observed by hunters, the livestock range rider in the area and residents in this sparsely populated mountain area. Carter Niemeyer, Idaho wolf coordinator for USFWS, and crew recently observed the tracks of 11 wolves crossing the Morgan Creek road.

Niemeyer said the local range rider for the grazing association said the wolves had been among the cattle all summer, but no losses were identified, with the exception of one possibility. A pilot observed the members of the pack killing a bighorn sheep, possibly the first such observation of that behavior in Idaho.

I learned of this group of wolves in October from a local hunter and conservationist. I told him it was maybe a new pack, but possibly the long established Moyer Basin Pack or the Twin Peaks Pack. Curt Mark, wolf biologist for the Nez Perce Tribe, told me that the Moyer Basin Pack, consisting of about 10 members, had pretty much all dispersed in 2001. However the pack had been rejuvenated in 2002, when interloping wolf B97M (never accepted by the Moyer Pack) gained a mate after the Moyer Pack's dispersal. Last spring they had two pups. These 4 wolves have tended to hang out in Panther Creek and tributaries north of Morgan Creek Summit and were identified in that area the day the eleven wolf tracks on the snowy road were observed. B97M was born to the old Stanley Pack, which was disrupted by Wildlife Services in 2000.

The status of the Twin Peaks Pack has been unknown ever since Carmen, Idaho resident Tim Sundles shot the alpha male, the only collared member of the pack, after he claimed the wolf was about to attack his wife.

Mack said the Twin Peaks Pack was almost all gray wolves, and this pack is half gray/half black. Efforts to locate the Twin Peaks Pack at its 2 previous den sites late last spring were not successful. Niemeyer hopes to soon radio collar a couple wolves in this new pack, although as in Yellowstone, the light snowpack makes darting wolves a real hit or (largely) miss proposition.

In other east and south central Idaho wolf news, B107F, a radio-collared disperser from the Moyer Basin Pack, has been under close observation ever since she migrated into the Sawtooth National Recreation Area last summer. Thought to be alone, she had, or at least now has what appears to be a mate. Elk are scattered due to the mild winter, and she has been in a prey rich area in the SNRA, although her earlier travels last year took her to the Middle Fork of the Salmon, southward to just east of Ketchum, Hailey, and Sun Valley, and to the East Fork of the Salmon, as well as Sawtooth Valley and Stanley Basin.

As an earlier article indicated wolf B2M, not to be confused with the late Yellowstone wolf R2M, seemed to have gradually lost his Wildhorse Pack after the alpha female died last winter. When re-collared last winter (late 2001), B2 was nearly toothless and getting cataracts. Biologists thought his end was near, but he survived the summer, fall, and has lately been in the general area of the East Fork of the Salmon. Now he is observed in the company of another wolf!

One dispersed member of the Wildhorse Pack was recently observed on the South Fork of the Payette River to the west of the Sawtooth Mountains.

There have been reports of wolves in the South Fork and the Middle Forks of the Boise River.

Summertime investigations whether a wolf pack was left north of Fairfield after several years of illegal killing, followed a year later by control for livestock depredation, revealed no pack, but one or two wolves passing through.

The new Buffalo Ridge Pack had 7 pups last spring, and Mack says he thinks all survived, giving a new pack of nine on the north side of the main Salmon River Canyon between Clayton and the Yankee Fork of the Salmon.

There have been few to no wolf attacks on livestock, perhaps because the mild winter has kept wolf prey up higher than the wintering cattle. Of course, this means continuation of the 4 year drought unless the weather changes a lot and soon, and (editorial comment) lots of forest fires next summer for politicians to blame on environmentalists.

  Copyright © 2003 Ralph Maughan