Reports of dispersing Idaho wolves.
March 20, 2000
Idaho wolves continue to disperse, especially to the south; where there are a number of interesting reports. The southward movement is interesting because most of the early Idaho wolf dispersal was northward, with little to the east or the south. Likewise, in Yellowstone most the dispersing was to the north. At present there are no known wolves south of Jackson Hole, despite abundant habitat.A couple weeks ago a wolf killed an elk just 3 miles SE of Belleview, Idaho near a new subdivision. That this was a wolf kill, has been confirmed. This is at the bottom of the Wood River Valley (Sun Valley/Ketchum area) near the margins of the Snake River Plain.
Two weeks ago, a gray wolf was seen by rancher Carl Rey in his field near Corral, Idaho. Last week he saw a black wolf feeding on cow carcass in a neighbor's field. Corral is on the Camas Prairie just south of the central Idaho Mountains. The Camas Prairie is a long, flat valley that sits about 2500 feet above the Snake River Plain. To its north are the high Soldier Mountains, and to its south, separating it from the Plain are the low but, rugged Mt. Bennett Hills. Corral is a gas station and store about 15 miles west of the small town of Fairfield, Idaho and about 40 miles west of Belleview (see above).
The Soldier Mountains from the Camas Prairie near Corral, Idaho. November.
Photo © Ralph MaughanThese wolves probably were part of a concentration of wolves that have come to an elk feeding site along the South Fork of the Boise River about ten miles north of Corral (on the other side of the mountains in the photo). The wolves have killed about 16 elk from among the 1500-1600 elk that winter there. All were calves except two adults, one of which was sick and the other lame. Idaho Fish and Game believes the elk herd at the feeding site has grown to large, although they will probably be forced to revise their view by Idaho politicians once the presence of wolves becomes widely known.
Wolves have also been observed on nearby Big Smoky Creek.
Meanwhile, still more reports of wolves along the margin of the Snake River Plain near Boise continue. There is almost certainly a pair of wolves above Boise, and I understand that if they have pups they may be named the "Timberline Pack" after the local high school.
The most amazing sighting of a wolf (not confirmed, but it was by a biologist) was near the Idaho-Utah-Nevada border, all the way across the Snake River Plain and 30 miles further south still. Most folks have assumed that wolves will enter Utah via Eastern Idaho from the Yellowstone population, but no one considered a southern Idaho connection which is much lower and drier. It has been assumed that wolves will never come to Nevada; and Nevada and California, much to the irritation of Defenders of Wildlife and other wolf supporters, have been left out of the Department of Interior's western wolf recovery area.
Unlike the uproar near Challis, Idaho, Idaho wolves near these less rural and more populated parts of Idaho do not seem to have caused the fear and political rabble rousing like in the Custer County (Challis, Clayton, Stanley) situation.
From a sociological point of view, this is interesting. Folks in these small anti-wolf rural communities look down on folks in the Wood River Valley and Boise as being effete and not really "Idaho." So why are these hardy central Idaho folks scared of wolves and soon (grizzly bears), but people who have homes in the mountain subdivisions and foothills of Boise are largely not afraid and even welcoming of large predators nearby?
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