Yellowstone wolf 12 heads south

1/20/96.

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In a surprise dispersal, the largest wolf in the Soda Butte Pack split
from the pack in December and headed south. No. 12, a black male weighing
perhaps 130 pounds, was located Jan. 16 just south of Dubois, Wyoming
in the foothills of the Wind River Mountains, 30 miles southeast of
Yellowstone National Park. The Soda Butte Pack was reintroduced in the
Lamar Valley in the Northeast corner of the Park. The rest of the pack
recently went north. Wolf 12 is now about 125 miles south of the other
five members of the pack. They are near Rosebud,Montana.

Wolf 12 had last been spotted on Dec. 19 east of Cooke City, Montana,
which is at the NE entrance to Yellowstone Park. Then it could not be
located for three weeks. It was spotted on Jan. 13 near Shoshone Pass
at the headwaters of the South Fork of the Shoshone River in the
Washakie Wilderness, 45 miles south of Cody, Wyoming. Since then it has
continued southward.

Ed Bangs, the US Fish and Wildlife Services' wolf project leader said,
"This wolf has probably gone father south than any other in the last 50
to 70 years.

There are numerous wintering wildlife on the east slope of the Wind
River Mountains, and the largest bighorn sheep herd in Wyoming is 5-10
miles south of Dubois on and near Whiskey Mountain and Whiskey Basin.
The Wind Rivers are highest mountain range in Wyoming, far eclipsing
the more famous Tetons in altitude.

Beneath the Wind River Mountains are a number of farms and ranches with
livestock. Ten mile SE of Dubois is the vast Wind River Indian Reservation.