The wolves that have arrived in Jackson Hole have not left the area. Instead the Soda Butte Pack has left its confines in the southeastern corner of Yellowstone and was also located Wednesday, Dec. 9 just inside Grand Teton National Park near Two Ocean Lake in the far NE corner of that national park (across Jackson Hole from the Teton mountains).
The Soda Butte Pack entered this area once late last fall, but they went back to Yellowstone to spend a lean winter on the small number of elk and moose that winter in the deep snow in the southern part of Yellowstone National Park. Ed Bangs, coordinator of the Northern Rockies Wolf Recovery, told me he wouldn't be surprised if they went back again, but he also suggested that this year the alpha female, No. 14F may consider southern Yellowstone less of home because she didn't mate or den in 1998 due to death of her mate no. 13M late in the winter of 1996-7 (see whelped five pups sired by him that spring). Now she may not be as attached to that area. For humans, on the surface, it is hard to understand why a wolf pack would see thousands of elk heading south and then go back north where there is little to eat in the winter.
One female from the Soda Butte Pack did remain in Yellowstone. This would put the pack's present size at six wolves.
Wolf 129F, a yearling from the former Thorofare Pack was again seen in the middle of Grand Teton NP with other wolves (probably herr sister and former Nez Perce alpha 29M). They were seen near Timbered Island right in the most scenic part of the park on an elk kill. A few days earlier they were located in the NE corner of the Park near Emma Matilda Lake (which is very close to Two Ocean Lake).
Wolves 133M and 24F were located on a kill near Elk Ranch Reservoir near the NE boundary of Grand Teton where the Buffalo Valley opens up into Jackson Hole. Wolf 24F is the former beta female and first offspring of Soda Butte alpha 14F. Wolf 133M is a yearling from the ill-fated Washakie Pack. These two wolves are black.
Bangs told me the trio and the pair are the most likely to make the Jackson area their new home because they are classic dispersers -- wolves that have left their pack or have no pack, who have moved into prey-rich new country.
Three wolves, including 129M, have been repeated spotted on
the bench in background just beneath the Tetons. Copyright ©
Ralph Maughan
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