Jackson Hole area wolves not seen much this winter.

Good News for the Teton Pack 

2-12-2000

The wolf packs that were so visible in the winter of 1999-99 on or near the National Elk Refuge have been little seen this mild winter.  Both the Gros Ventre Pack of five wolves and the Teton Pack of six have spent most of the winter up the Gros Ventre River east of Jackson Hole.  Both have appeared on the Refuge briefly and one or two elk have been killed, but it has been nothing like last winter when the Jackson Trio (now the Gros Ventre Pack) and the Soda Butte Pack were frequently on the Refuge, which held almost 8000 elk last winter and 5000 this winter. This winter so far the rest of the 5000-6000 elk in the herd are wintering off the Refuge. The entire Jackson Hole elk herd only comes to the Refuge in the most severe winters.

Last winter the wolves were estimated to have killed about 100 elk on or near the Elk Refuge in the valley of Jackson Hole.

The Soda Butte Pack has remained in its traditional territory, the southeast quadrant of Yellowstone, where it resided in both the fall and the winter of 1996-7, the summer and winter of 1997-8, and the summer and fall of 1998. In the winter of 1998-9 it visited the Refuge and Jackson Hole a number of times, but it also returned about 3 times to the deep snow of SE Yellowstone. It also summered in SE Yellowstone in 1999.

There is good news for the Teton Pack which has consisted of the alpha female 24F and her five pups ever since her mate was killed on the highway in June 1999, another adult wolf, probably a male, has been with the pack.  Recent efforts to capture some of the pack for radio-collaring were not successful when she and her probable mate led the pups into the trees.  Number 24F does wear a radio collar.