Late June update on 2003 Yellowstone area pups and packs

251F probably dead, probably marking the end of a new YNP pack

6-27-2003, addition 7-5

Dan Stahler of the YNP wolf team flew for wolves yesterday. Here is the report. Also included is a report for Wyoming wolves outside Yellowstone Park. The information here is from wolf manager Mike Jimenez.

Of most interest was the mortality signal of wolf 251F, high in the Washburn Range. She had been seen with 5 pups, and the speculation was what her new pack would be named. Added 7-5-03. Her body was found cached by a grizzly bear. The bear may well have killed her.

On the other hand, Stahler made the first official sighting of pups for the new Slough Creek Pack. He saw that 217F had at least 4 pups --2 black and 2 gray.

Three adults from the Leopold Pack were visible at the den site. They were in the process of testing a moose. No pups were seen during the flight, but previously 5 pups were counted.

All of the Druids were at the den site. Interestingly, they recently made a kill high on Specimen Ridge and the adults have been making long trips from that ridgetop and then across Lamar Valley to their den site to feed the 13 or so pups. Ten pups were visually spotted on 6-26. Also of interest is that Leopold wolf 302M is still hanging around. He is the suspected father of 2 of the litters. He recently was seen feeding on the bull elk that was killed by the Druids just downstream from Soda Butte on July 20 (a kill I was fortunate to see).

Mollies Pack always has to fight for every scrap. Stahler saw the alpha pair resting near a bull elk carcass they had killed, but as is usual the carcass had been seized by a Pelican Valley grizzly bear and a second grizzly was seen making its way to the carcass.

The Swan Lake Pack was, as usual in Gardiner's Hole. Detection was by radio collar. No wolves were seen. Previously 6 gray pups had been counted in this large, all gray pack (folks say they all look like clones).

The Geode Creek wolves were not seen, but the signals of alphas 106F and 300M were detected in what is probably their rendezvous site.

A few Agate Creek adults were seen near the den site, but none of the 8 or so pups.

The Rose Creek Pack was still in upper Hellroaring, north of the Park, deep in the Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness where they probably killed 105F. The alpha pair of this pack is not clear, but most likely 150M, a former Leopold wolf and 190F who was born to the Rose Creek Pack. Long time alpha female 18F, of 9F's 1995 litter was never radio collared, was always hard to identify, but is now thought to be dead.

The Cougar Creek Pack was as usual in the Madison Valley, hard to see in the dense stands of regenerating lodgepole pine.

The long-standing Chief Joseph Pack, the Park's hardest to collar pack, was not seen.

Two pups were finally seen with the Yellowstone Delta pack, and it looks like this year they denned near Yellowstone Lake, deep in the Park backcountry rather than near Thorofare Creek where the outfitters harass them. Former Washakie Pack wolf276M, one of the few radio collars, appears to still be a new member of the pack. He was seen about a mile from the rest of the pack feeding on a kill.

The Nez Perce Pack, another all gray wolf pack, was seen at their remote central Yellowstone den site.

The Bechler Pack was not flown, due to their out of the way location in SW Yellowstone.

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Outside Yellowstone Park in Wyoming, Mike Jimenez reports that it looks now like the Teton Pack had just one litter, probably 6 pups. This size of the pack, down from over 20 last winter is now 9-12 yearling and adult wolves, with former members coming and going into the Gros Ventre area and some still near Pinedale.

The Sunlight Basin pack, east of YNP,  has 3 pups as I reported previously.

Efforts to ascertain the pups status and to collar the Beartooth Pack have been suspended for a while and an effort is being made to collar and count pups in the Absaroka Pack. There are 4 radio collars, and they appear to have denned. The collar on the alpha female, 153F is no longer working.

As mentioned in a number of previous reports, the Washakie Pack has split, but it looks like the group that remained in the Dunoir did not den. The group that moved east to the general Horse Creek area in, and near the Washakie Wilderness, did den, but no pup count.

They Greybull Pack is prospering with 5 new pups. This pack mostly lives inside the Washakie Wilderness, Greybull River drainage, SW of Meeteetse, Wyoming.

The only new pack in Wyoming this year, then, is the Green River Pack in the Wind River Mountains in the vicinity of Pinedale. Tracks of pups have been seen, but no count yet.

I have gathered no data on Greater Yellowstone packs in Montana to the north and northwest of Yellowstone Park.