Idaho Wolf Information. Late Nov 2000
11-26-2000. More information 11-28
I haven't done a comprehensive update on Idaho wolves for quite a while, although there have been many continuing stories about threats to the Stanley Pack.Here is a modest update, which I will try to flesh out over the next few days.
The southernmost known Idaho Pack is the Big Smoky Pack, named after a creek in the southern end of Idaho's Smoky Mountains. This is only about 8 statute miles north of the town of Fairfield, albeit over one mountain range. Some of this pack was seen near Fairfield late last winter. The alpha male has been trapped and radio collared. He appears to be a disperser and is about 2 years old.
The northernmost known pack is the new Marble Creek Pack near the St. Joe River about 15 miles east of St. Maries. The pack was founded this year by an uncollared female and B48M, a disperser from the Kelly Creek Pack.
For several years the most northerly pack had been the Snow Peak Pack which lived at the headwaters of the St. Joe and North Fork of the Clearwater. Its current status is not known because all of the pack's radio collars have died, and it is very hard to track wolves in this area of steep, remote, and heavily forested mountains.
The Kelly Creek Pack is the next most northerly. It has had pups every year since 1997. It inhabits the Idaho-Montana border north of Lolo Pass and Highway 12.
South of Highway 12 is the Big Hole Pack. It had pups in 1998 and 1999. No pups have been observed this year, and the pack's movements are not typical of a pack with pups -- the pack has made a grand circuit around the Bitterroot Range twice this year.
The Selway Pack lives mostly to the east and southeast of Elk City in west, north central Idaho. The pack's reproduction has been off and on over the years, beginning way back in 1996. For the last two years they have had pups, although just one pup in 1999. This year they have a larger litter.
The Chamberlain Basin Pack lives in the vast Chamberlain Basin area of the Frank Church Wilderness south and far above where the main Salmon flows east to west across central Idaho. It has had pups every year since 1996. It is one of the first three packs on have pups in Idaho. This year it had two litters, and the second litter has split from the main pack. This is remote, but not untravelled country. Backcountry airstrips bring in many hunters in the fall, and hunters and outfitters have seen a lot of this pack.
To the east of the Frank Church is the land of the vast Clear Creek fire this summer -- 220,000 acres, but as with most forest fires, the area inside the burn ranges from severe to unburned. This the range of the rejuvenated Jureano Mountain Pack, which was essentially eliminated by illegal shooting and wolf control by Wildlife Services over a year ago. B46F, a member of the pack's first litter in 1997, returned to the area late in the fall of 1999 with an uncollared mate (a big wolf), and they were observed to have 4 pups in July 2000. 46's sister, of course, is B45F, the wolf that went to Oregon, but was retrapped and now lives north of McCall near the Burgdorf, Secesh River area. The pack appeared not to have been affected much by the huge forest fire and the 1000+ people who were fighting it.
South of the range of the Jureano is the Moyer Basin Pack, now with pups now for the third year.
To the south of the Frank Church, inhabiting mostly the west slope and foothills of the White Cloud Mountains is the Stanley Pack about which so much as been written this year due to the conflicts livestock have imposed on the pack. The big alpha male and a yearling female were captured last summer and transported to northern Idaho. One member of the pack was killed in control actions this year (B69F) and one was killed in a control the year previous. Over time the pack has produced a number of disperers, two of which are known -- the alpha female of the new Wolf Fang Pack, and the alpha female of the Orphan Pack (who was in fact orphaned--left behind as a pup when the pack moved south from its original territory which was mostly to the north of the central Idaho tourist hamlet of Stanley). The pack presently consists of ten adults and 7 pups. Four wolves are radio-collared: B23F, the black alpha female; B95F, a gray female; B97M, a gray male; and B100F, a gray female yearling.
In the last two or three weeks some members, including B100F, have moved up Pole Creek and down Germania Creek (the natural migration route to the east side of the White Cloud Mountains), and may have occupied the territory of the White Cloud Pack which was dismembered in control actions last spring.
South of the Stanley Pack is the Wildhorse Pack, a new pack with just one pup that lives in the heights of the rugged Pioneer Mountains east of Hailey and Ketchum. The pack was founded wolf B2M, one of the first four wolves released into Idaho in 1995, and B66F from the Stanley Pack. B2 was "lost" for a long time to radio trackers because his radio collar frequency was mislaid. The pack ranges mostly just to east of the Pioneer Crest in the headwaters of the forks of Fall Creek, Wildhorse Creek, Kane Creek, Summit Creek, and Trail Creek.
The abandoned territory of the Stanley Pack, north and northwest of Stanley, has been claimed by the new Whitehawk Pack, another pack with just one pup this year, but which has six adults, probably dispersers from the Landmark Pack. The pack ranges from the headwaters of Bear Valley Creek (beneath Whitehawk Mountain) through Fir Creek, Capehorn Creek, and Marsh Creek, all the way to the outskirts of Stanley.
The Landmark Pack was one of the earliest (1996) and most successful Idaho packs, but which lost its alpha pair back in 1998 of unknown causes. The dead alpha pair possessed the only radio collars in the pack, so the pack was lost to trackers until the summer of 1999 when a known radio-collared wolf joined the pack. The pack was in the traditional territory it had always occupied from the crossroads of Landmark eastward into the headwaters of Sulphur Creek, Pistol, Creek, and Elk Creek to the Middle Fork of the Salmon River. The territory of the Landmark Pack is just north of the Whitehawk Pack.
To the west of the Landmark Pack is the new Orphan Pack with two adults and one pup. To the northwest of the Landmark Pack are the long-standing Thunder Mountain Pack with new pups and the new Wolf Fang Pack, founded this year by a disperser from the Stanley Pack, B38F and an uncollared wolf. They have 5 pups. The Wolf Fang Pack is named after a prominent peak near the western edge of the Frank Church Wilderness.
Finally in September a pack of 9 uncollared wolves was found on the Idaho-Montana border in the West Fork of the Bitterroot River. It appears the pack had been there at least 2 years. This may explain why the Selway Pack abandoned this part of their range to settle in what had been the west side of their long, narrow territory that once stretched 2/3 the way across north central Idaho.
The packs listed above add up to 16 (or 178if you count the 2nd litter of the Chamberlain Basin Pack and the new "Bitterroot" Pack). This is obviously much greater than needed -- ten, but it is ten breeding pairs that count for declassification purposes. This means an alpha pair and at least 2 pups that survive the year. Applying this criterion the following packs don't count this year: Big Hole Pack, Stanley Pack, Wildhorse Pack, Orphan Pack, Whitehawk Pack, Snow Peak Pack (status unknown). This leaves just 10 or 12 breeding pairs. Will ten make it through the year? Idaho had 10 pairs in 1998 and perhaps 10 in 1999 (there is controversy whether this was counted correctly).
As of mid-summer the official estimate of the number of Idaho recovery area wolves was 190-220. This will dwindle until next spring when the next pups arrive.
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