Notes from Big Sky Country, Issue 2
By Drusha Mayhue

(note:  Rick McIntyre is the author of 2 books on wolves, A Society of Wolves and War Against the Wolf:  America's Campaign to Exterminate the Wolf.)  He works in Yellowstone from May until September as a park ranger giving wolf interpretation programs.  He continues to do research on his own time, documenting wolf behavior and just how well the re-introduction of wolves into Yellowstone National Park has gone.)

I saw 25 WOLVES on Sunday, November 2!

I went down to Yellowstone NP on Saturday morning for the weekend.  There was a light dusting of snow and frost on the fields between Livingston and Gardiner.  Closer to Gardiner the fields cleared entirely.  On one of the snow-dusted fields, I saw a red fox sitting, just looking at its surroundings.  Visiting Yellowstone at this time of year is wonderful because there are so few visitors and all services are closed until December.  Once inside the Park, I stopped to take a picture of a pretty view.  When I got out of the car, the silence was ear-splitting in its
intensity.  There were no cars, no wind, no "silent" whirs of the electrical/electronic world.  I stood and closed my eyes to listen, it was so unexpected.  It was the complete absence of sound.

I found Rick McIntyre down in the Lamar Valley. Many people follow Rick up and down the road in the Lamar Valley so they can see the wolves.  He is gracious enough to appear unaffected by the intrusion.  If it was me, I would go stark raving mad.  On this day there was only one other car parked behind his on the road!!!  As luck would have it, the car belonged to Kathy Mason Maechtle, executive director of WERC, Wolf Education Research Center
in Idaho.  Because Rick is leaving in a week to go to Big Bend for the winter, Kathy and her husband decided to come see the Yellowstone wolves before Rick left for the winter.  The Valley was covered with a powdered-sugar coating of snow, some places had more than others, some were coated only with frost.  Rick had located wolf #41F of the Druid Peak pack.
The Druid's, specifically the alpha female's sister, are trying to kick #41 out of the pack.  The reasons aren't known.  #41 is a social wolf and still tries to re-join, even though she is sometimes nipped at and attacked.  In any case, she was alone in the valley trying to find her pack.  She would sit down, howl, then wait to hear a response.  Nothing.  Up she stood,
trotting through the brush and grass trying to find a scent trail telling her where her pack had gone.  More howling.  We left after she disappeared into the forest, still looking for her pack.

On the way to the Norris Geyser basin the weather was unpredictable.  It was sunny and bright, then overcast and snowing.  At one point I saw the most vivid colors I've seen on a fall day.  The grass was golden yellow.  Growing thoughout the grass were these bright burgundy clumps of plants, later identified as a willow.  That would make sense as the area is called Moose
Willows.  The leaves had fallen off leaving the burgundy stems of the now leafless plant.  I thought it was a color mixture that clothing designers would try to capture.  Except there was no way to transfer the color, so mutedly vibrant in Nature, to man-made cloth.

On the way back to the Lamar Valley for the afternoon wolf viewing, I saw a big group of bison just before entering the Valley.  I parked my car and watched for a while.  Some of the bison had been collared and ear-tagged. There is no doubt, they have suffered significant losses during last years' shootings and the vagaries of one of the hardest winters in this century. When I brought a group from the Houston Sierra Club to Yellowstone in September of 1996, the bison were estimated to be about 3500 and spread through-out the Lamar Valley.  The bison now number about 1200 (before the birth of the spring calves).  Perhaps the bison were here, bunched together, because they felt safer in larger numbers. Large dark boulders were strewn among them.  The boulders looked like silent statues of fallen bison, a memorial to those lost to the senseless slaughter that took place last winter.  I imagined the boulder bison rising up to seek revenge on their fallen comrades.

I arrived back to Lamar at 4 pm, where we last saw #41.  It was getting colder.  We didn't see any wolves that evening although Rick's telemetry said that #41 was near.  It was overcast.  After sunset, as the darkness surrounded us, there was a gentle arctic breeze (a gentle arctic breeze sounds like a contrast in terms).  One could say it looked sort of bleak. We were getting ready to leave when...the saddest, most mournful howl could be heard from across the Valley.  It was a looooong, low and deep howl.Kathy and the people at WERC have noted that happy wolves seem to have a higher pitch to their howl and the deeper the howl, the less happy the wolf. If this is so, this was one sad little puppy.  #41 was still in the trees howling for the pack that left without her.  It brought a lump to my throat.

This city girl had the intention of camping out in the back of her pick-up at Slough Creek Campground.  I believed I was ready.  I had made a trial run a month earlier and made improvements and changes to my packing/camping scheme.  Kathy, her husband, and I went into Cooke City to eat.  They were staying at the Alpine Lodge.  After supper I thought about the drive back to Slough Creek.  It was at least 45 minutes and the road outside of Cooke City had some ice and snow on it.  I wondered what would happen if it snowed during the night and I became snowed in at the end of the long dirt road to Slough Creek.  I didn't have snow tires on my pickup and no chains.  After looking at my options, I decided I would inquire about hotel prices.  The first place was $46.  Forget it!  I'd sleep in the truck.  I went back to the Alpine Lodge and a sweet lady said "well, it's so late and we aren't full.  How about $25?"  Sold!  I said I am a city girl, not a stupid city girl.

The next morning, I beat Kathy and her husband Tom back out to the Valley and found Rick, just beginning to get his gear out of his car.  Kathy and Tom arrived soon after me.  Rick's radio had picked up wolf signals indicating that the Druid Peak Pack was just in front of us.  Great!
However the Valley was fogged in.  We could barely see the tops of the mountains through the fog.  It was a sunny day and once the sun came up, the fog would burn off.  We all climbed a hill to set up our paraphernalia, ready to see wolves once the sun came out.

Patience paid off in spades.  As the fog was lifting, we saw the Druids. They apparently had made a kill the night before and were just finishing their morning meal.  We could see #41 as well.  She was sitting off to the left in the brush in plain view, just watching, waiting to see if the conditions looked favorable for joining her pack.  They didn't.  She continued to sit.  The rest of the pack had a group howl after re-grouping from their morning activities.  We could see the kill site.  Ravens and a bald eagle had settled in for the leftovers.  The beta male [no. 31]  had lingered over breakfast and was the last to leave the kill before re-joining the pack a little ways to the east.  You could tell his arrival was imminent.  The Druids all turned to look in the direction of the arriving beta male.  When he got to the group, they all began howling, yelping, and frolicking because they were glad to see him.  We should all be as lucky to have someone so glad to see us just because we came back from breakfast!

Meanwhile, one of the wolves came nearer to #41 and laid down for a while.

#39, the white-haired wolf who is the grandmother of the pack has apparently left again.  She has been seen further down the road near Pebble Creek.  So the pack of 12 [11] is now 10 [9].  Kathy and I wondered why #39 and #41 didn't join forces to form their own mini-group.  Rick said they had been seen together but not for long.  #41 hasn't accepted her exclusion from the pack and still hopes that something will change.  The Druid's beta male apparently gets along with her.  One of the future possibilities could be for the beta male to break off from the Druids and join #41 to start their own pack.  The drama is still playing out.

Bob Landis, wildlife photographer, was out in the Valley this weekend as well.  He and Rick were in communication by 2-way radio about wolf movements.  Bob had grown tired of waiting for the fog to lift and went down the road to see if anything was happening with the Rose Creek pack, in the vicinity of Slough Creek.  Bob missed seeing the Druids.  Once the Druids seemed to be settling in for their siesta and because the Rose Creeks were out, Rick and Co. decided to move down to Slough Creek.  At Slough Creek there were only 2 of the wolves visible at first.  Rick led us again to a hill above where the other people were standing.  Once in place, we spotted the rest of the Rose Creek pack above the flats coming back from their early
morning jaunt.  We counted 14 WOLVES!!!  They were walking single file along a rock outcropping.  It looked like a pack train of wolves!!!  They continued down to lower ground then they disappeared behind another large rock outcropping.

There were still the 2 wolves in the flats in the foreground.  Bob Landis left at this point to see if the Leopold Pack was out and about.  The rest of the people viewing the wolves with him also left.  We continued to wait to see if the rest of the pack would re-emerge.  We waited so long that Rick decided he would drive down the road to see if we could get a better view
and let us know by radio.  But...just as he was getting ready to leave, the whole pack re-appeared down on the flats!!!  Awesome is not a strong enough word.  There we saw 14 wolves out on the flats doing their wolf-sort of things.  We saw many wolf behaviors:  submission, tail wagging and positioning, and fear.  At one point they were all trying to cross a creek. They wouldn't go down to the creek bed even though it would have been easy.
They kept looking, not moving.  Finally, one of the older wolves, maybe the alpha male [no.8], went down and the others slowly followed.  But for some reason, they all came bounding back up out of the creek area.  Perhaps there was a grizzly bear in the stream bed we couldn't see.

We saw famous wolf #9.  She looks different from the rest of the wolves, with a light-colored face and a charcoal body, rather than black or gray. She has produced at least 17 pups since arriving in Yellowstone.  Already she is a Yellowstone legend!

Wolf #9 is the alpha female of the Rose Creeks.  She, along with wolf #10, produced the first litter of Yellowstone pups.  #10 was shot in 1995 by a guy whose idea of fun was to shoot a wolf.  He shot #10 just for the hell of it.  At a July 4th Festival in Red Lodge in 1995, he rode through town on a horse, holding a rifle above his head, wearing a T-shirt that said something
like "I killed a wolf" (information courtesy of Outside Magazine article). No one even knew the guy wasn't in jail until Outside's article last year. #9's new mate is wolf #8.  They've been together since 1995.  This is her 3rd mate:  her mate in Alberta, from where she came, #10, and now #8.

At one point a coyote came out to look at the wolves from on top of a mound. Some of the wolves began moving in it's direction.  We thought we might see some action but the coyote backed off and the wolves claimed the mound and settled in to watch the flats below.

We watched until about 11:30.  Most of the wolves went behind the mound, but 2 bedded down in front of the mound and 2 stayed on the flats for their siesta.

Rick, Kathy and Tom, and I saw 25 wolves on November 2.  Rick said this is the most he has seen in one day as well.  This represents just under a 1/3 of the Yellowstone wolves.

It was a fine day for viewing wolves.