The Bass Creek pack, consisting of a mother wolf and her five remaining pups, has finally been moved to Spotted Bear on the edge of the vast Bob Marshall Wilderness about 50 miles south of Glacier National Park.
It was a long trip from the pen in McCall in western Idaho, where the pack spent the summer and the fall after being captured in June at Bass Creek on the Bitterroot Front near Stevensville, Montana. They were captured after some livestock depredations. The alpha male was accidentally killed in the McCall enclosure and three of the original eight pups died of a parvo-virus infection.
The pack was trucked 350 miles from McCall to Missoula, Montana on Monday. Then they were trucked another 110 miles north Kalispell, Montana on Tuesday. From there, they were flown to the remote Spotted Bear airstrip. They will be held in an enclosure for about a week before a remote control system (rigged to a pulley) releases them. The pack, should it stay together, will probably be renamed the "Spotted Bear Pack."
The pack is now in good health and the pups weigh about 75 pounds, but it is doubtful they have a clue about hunting. That will all be left to their mother, to feed them and teach them. The situation seems a lot like the release of Yellowstone wolf no. 9F and her eight pups back in Oct. 1995, but a dispersing wolf from the nearby Crystal Creek Pack was already standing outside their Yellowstone Park enclosure when they were released, ready to help assume leadership of the pack. The results were spectacular, with the Rose Creek Pack becoming the largest in the lower 48 states.The Bass Creek female has no immediate prospect, although a lone male wolf may be in the general area.
The area is remote and the pack can travel a fair distance in any direction and not encounter livestock, at least in the winter. There are likely some wounded elk and deer left over from the hunt as well as unretrieved carcasses, although the bear may have cleaned most of them up already.
Ironically, as this pack is about to be released, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has reported that another wolf pair may have moved into the Bass Creek area above the Bitterroot Valley, which is quickly becoming one vast area of unplanned urban and rural sprawl.
Past stories on the Bass Creek Pack:
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Copyright ©1999 Ralph Maughan
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