Northwest Montana wolves prosper

8/18/96.

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I haven't posted information on the wolves of northwest Montana
(which came to the area without being reintroduced), but I have
received some information I thought it would be of interest.

First a little background.

Reports of wolves near Glacier National Park began to trickle
in during the late 1970s. In 1979 a wolf was captured just
north of the U.S. border in British Columbia. She was released
with a radio collar. Three years later this same wolf had mated
and produced a litter of eight pups. According to Hank Fischer
in his book "Wolf Wars," this pack was named the "Magic Pack" due
to its tendency to appear and disappear for long periods. The
Magic Pack became the first pack of wolves to inhabit the western
United States in 50 years.

As for the present, excluding the Yellowstone reintroduction and
the new pack consisting of B7 and B11 and their pups (from the
central Idaho reintroduction), Montana now has eight packs of
wolves.

The largest pack is the South Camas pack with a whopping 23 members.

Of the seven other packs, breeding has been confirmed among six of
them.

According to information I received from the Wolf Education and
Research Center (WERC), it is expected that the huge South Camas
Pack will begin to disperse to form new packs soon due to its large
size and also because the white tail deer population in the area is
declining.