Update 9-14-2001. Wolves Return
Since shortly after the central Idaho wolf reintroduction, The Big Hole Valley of SW Montana, has been a favorite dispersal location for wolves. This big valley, 60 miles long, seems almost uninhabited, and it is both an attraction for wolves and a source of their demise, due to the usual culprit, livestock.
In the summer, the valley is abundant with wolf prey -- moose, elk, and deer. In the winter the wildlife migrates to less harsh areas, mostly to the west of the Continental Divide in Idaho. They migrate because the Big Hole has tough winters. Unlike the elk, the wolves that have repeatedly colonized the valley, have failed to migrate with their prey, and they have ended up killed by Wildlife Services, translocated away from the valley, or they have just disappeared.
It may seem odd that the wolves don't follow the elk migration, but it took wolves at least 4 years to follow the massive elk migration of the Jackson Hole elk herd (which summers in the mountains around Jackson Hole) onto its winter feedgrounds.
This year, there have been two pairs of wolves in the valley. One pair consisted of B80F, one of the two surviving pups of 1999 from the then, hard-luck Jureano Mountain Pack and her uncollared mate. The second was B63M and B100F. B63 was a member of the old White Cloud Pack. He was relocated to the north central Idaho wilderness in 1998 after the pack had made its first kills of cow calves in the East Fork of the Salmon River. B100F was a member of the former Stanley Pack, which dispersed last fall, after a number of control actions against the pack.
These two pairs have not been involved in killing any Big Hole livestock, but this year wolf managers decided to take pro-active measures and on Aug. 18 and 19 the two pairs of wolves were captured and relocated to the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness of north central Idaho. Originally, there had been some talk of translocating a wolf pair from the Big Hole to the Panhandle of Idaho, but a reporter from the Spokane Spokesman-Review ruined that idea, when his premature article caused a political furor. See the updates portion of <http://www.forwolves.org/ralph/boulderpack-koocanusa.htm> for that story.
As an aside, famous wolf B36F, former alpha female of the White Cloud Pack, who was relocated to central while she was very pregnant in April 2000, was last seen in the Big Hole Valley late last winter. She, and one or more of her pups (which had not been expected to survive), had migrated from north central Idaho to the Big Hole in the summer of 2000.
Update 9-14-2001: The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has announced "Three of the four "Idaho" wolves that were preemptively moved out of the Big Hole Valley in SW Montana and released in central Idaho, have returned to the Big Hole Valley. The fourth is close and will likely return. Local landowners were notified. Additional relocation options are being considered. Meanwhile, if these wolves are involved in confirmed depredations they will be lethally removed."
As a side note. One Idaho Fish and Game commissioner upon hearing that these 4 wolves had been moved from Montana to central Idaho complained about Montana wolves being taken to Idaho when in fact these wolves originated in Idaho. This is just another example of how badly informed the Idaho Fish and Game Commission is about the wolf program.
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