Kathie Lynch, a veteran wolf and wildlife watcher, as well as a high school biology teacher at Los Gatos High School, recently spent several days on Yellowstone Park's northern range, mostly in the Lamar, and emailed me some terrific notes about the goings-on.  They are reproduced below for your information pleasure.

Thank you, Kathie!

First, a brief note about denning: the new Druid alpha female 286F denned on April 7. Circumstantial evidence also indicates that the uncollared Slough Creek alpha female denned on April 7. Whether this later date is exact, now on the 15th, she is clearly denned. As is reported below, a second female with the Druid Pack,  376F, is also pregnant and ought to be due about April 17. Former Druid wolf 255M is pregnant (not denned as of April 15), and she is alone. So the fate of her pups looks very grave. The Druids would not accept her back. Bob Landis has some great video from this winter showing the Druids making it plain the U-Black female was not welcome back, although the video shows much of the pack still loves 302M, the non-pack member who probably fathered two of the Druid litters last year.

Dr. Doug Smith of YNP thinks the Geode Pack and the Leopold Pack have also denned. A flight is scheduled for April 16.

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Greetings, Wolf Interested Friends!

I have just returned from the 16th Annual North American Interagency Wolf
Conference near Yellowstone, April 6-8. Here's some news for you wolf
junkies (yes, I did manage to get in three days of excellent wolf watching in
Yellowstone too!)...
The Druids were out in almost full force. Of the 13 Druids (4 adults & 9
yearlings), only the new alpha female, 286F, was missing--she had denned in
the traditional Druid den site (thank goodness!!!!) on April 7. The 12 Druids
which were usually present and visible included the other 3 adults: 9 year old
alpha male 21M (born in 1995 in the first litter of wolves born in the
Yellowstone ecosystem in nearly 60 years; 21M is the offspring of reintroduced
Canadian wolves famous 9F and ill-fated 10M), the perpetually limping "favorite
uncle" 4 year old 253M, and last year's uncollared "gray yearling female" who is
now 2 years old, collared (376F), and pregnant--I saw her mate with an unknown
black interloper in mid-February when I was there for Norm Bishop's excellent
YAI wolf course, "The Ripple Effect, the Ecology of Wolf Restoration"...376F's
pups aren't due until a couple of weeks after 286F's. The 9 yearlings
include: 4 grays (348M, 373M, & 2 uncollared grays) and 5 Blacks (349M, 350M--very
bold and has a distinctive light-colored saddle, 374M, 375F, and 1 uncollared
black).
Note: Dispersed former Druid 255F is pregnant and alone; she has been
hanging out with some Slough Creek pack males at various times and has several
times tried to rejoin the Druids, but has not been accepted. She was traveling
alone in the Slough Creek flats, very pregnant and due to pup any day. The
aggressive Slough Creek alpha female (who probably killed former Druid female
Half Black) has already denned. I did not see the other dispersed Druid female,
U Black, who has been in the company of the Mollie's pack (with gigantic
Mollie's black male 194M, 130 pounds!) most of the winter and probably will not
return to the Druids.
Druid activity during my three days of watching included lots of time
around a (winter-killed) bison carcass near the rendezvous site. It was the
center of great activity by the wolves, a giant grizzly, two bald eagles and many
ravens. The grizzly was especially amazing--he came out of the tree line and
headed to the carcass at a dead run (35 mph--as fast as a racehorse!) and
proceeded to rip into the ribs, lie down on top of it and stay for hours; one
black yearling wolf (349M?) harassed the griz and was continually swatted away by
a giant paw/claws. The wolves had eaten plenty already and were just lying
around and could have gone back to the carcass at any time, but didn't choose to
until the grizzly showed up. Anyway, the griz put on quite a show all of one
evening.
Another big event was when the Druids went hunting (after the bison
carcass was gone.) They were all bedded in the open grass across from the Buffalo
Ranch. Two yearlings played a chasing game--one mercilessly chasing another,
who ran with tucked tail. Then, one by one, they all got up and headed west;
eight went into the trees and flushed out eight elk; the elk ran directly
toward the road & the wolves split them into groups of six and two. I thought for
sure they'd make a kill, but I guess they were only testing, because the
wolves stopped and just let the elk go. They had already made two unsuccessful
chases earlier that morning. The wolves continued west and disappeared into the
trees--from which they flushed a group of bison and 4 more elk...several
wolves just trailed along behind the bison and elk and didn't chase them. The
wolves continued up onto Jasper Bench and pestered a group of bison there--the
bison all bunched into a circle with tails inward and just stood off the wolves.
When last seen, the Druids had continued west and were seen from Slough
Creek way up on north side of Specimen Ridge. They flushed some elk out up there
and then disappeared--perhaps they made a kill in the trees or went over to the
south side of Specimen Ridge...(a dangerous place...that's where the great
gray lady, Druid alpha female 42F, was killed by other wolves, probably the
Mollie's pack, in early February.)
I saw several other interesting wolf/bison interactions. Seven wolves
surrounded a bison bull and chased him some, but he held his ground and kicked
at them, narrowly missing--it certainly showed that hunting has great risk for
the wolves. On another occasion, several yearlings harassed a bison, but it
almost looked like play or perhaps hunting practice. The Druids may have
developed a taste for bison since they have dined on three winter-killed carcasses
lately.
The ever-persistent, beautiful, black Leopold wolf, 302M, (probable sire
of two of last year's Druid litters) is still trying to gain acceptance to the
Druids. He showed up one morning and went off for a time with yearling 375F,
who is probably his daughter. She returned to the Druids, but that evening
when 302M made his approach, he was convincingly chased off by alpha 21M and a
gray yearling---302M swam the Lamar River, crossed the road, and ended up on
the hill right behind us on Rendezvous Overlook! Rick McIntyre suggested that
we move because there have been concerns about 302M becoming habituated to
humans--they have chased him away from the road in the past with rubber bullets
and cracker shells. Anyway, 302M has not given up on his campaign to join the
Druids, and 21M still will absolutely not allow it.
The most heartwarming scene I observed was when a gang of six yearlings
greeted 21M--they all ran to him, surrounded him, tails wagging, bodies
wriggling, and with much licking around his mouth--it reminded me of a sign I saw
recently, "Caution: Dog Cannot Hold Its Licker!"
I also had the chance to observe seven wolves of the Slough Creek pack
conduct textbook chases of elk in the Slough Creek flats...they split two elk
off and the elk ran separately into Slough Creek and stood there in water too
deep for the wolves to reach them. The wolves quickly lost interest and left,
but it illustrated an excellent survival technique often employed by the elk.
In addition to all of the fantastic wolf watching, there was all kinds of
great other wildlife to see--a cow moose (one of the few I've seen in
Yellowstone) wading in Floating Island Lake and eating pond scum, a pair of trumpeter
swans on a pond in Little America (I hope they stay...last year there weren't
any there and the ponds dried up), a classic American black bear (rich black
fur and cinnamon-colored nose...just like the stuffed animals and wood
carvings) near the Lamar canyon, five bighorn rams with huge curls, many pronghorn,
lots of elk--some bulls still with last year's antlers and some with just nubs,
and bison everywhere (they say there are close to 4000 bison in the Park, but
the damn state of Montana (Department of Livestock) and the National Park
Service still insist on shooting them--277 this winter and 2778 in the last 10
years--when they leave YNP during the winter, all due to the ranchers'
completely unfounded fear of Brucellosis transfer from bison to grazing cattle; it's
really not a bacterial disease issue; it's about control of our, the taxpayers',
public land in the West.)
One note about the weather--it was good...too good. There is almost no
snow left in the Northern Range, except on the high peaks, as the drought
continues for its sixth year. The weather was mostly warm (30's/40's...but it was
freezing early and late wolf watching!) and dry, which bodes ill for this
summer. They're hoping that April, May & June will be the rainy months.

I'm looking forward to more great wolf watching and taking several
classes at the Yellowstone Association Institute this summer: "Predator Conservation
in Greater Yellowstone," "Fang & Flesh: Hunter and Hunted in Yellowstone,"
Doug Smith's "Wolves of the World", and "Legendary Yellowstone Wolves: Their
Individual Stories."