Update on the Slough Creek Pack in the Lamar Valley, Oct. 2005

Update on the Slough Creek Pack in the Lamar Valley

10-22-2005

Kathie Lynch recently sent a report from Yellowstone on recent observations of the Slough Creek Pack, which now completely controls the valley.
I find the report especially interesting because she gives all of the nicknames wolf watchers use in identifying the uncollared members of the pack. Thanks, Kathie.

The wolf scenario in the Lamar Valley is pretty much the same as it has been since last summer. Our beloved Druids are AWOL (although Rick did get 302M's signal over near Cache Creek recently), and the Slough Creek pack owns just about all of the real estate from Elk Creek through Tower Junction and Little America to the Lamar Valley and along Soda Butte Creek up to Round Prairie and Pebble Creek! That's a lot of territory for the 15 mighty Sloughs (12 adults and 3 surviving pups) to defend, but so far they haven't had any challengers. The Sloughs have been entrenched since midsummer on Jasper Bench, and they also like to hang out in the old Druid rendezvous site. ;

There are nine black and six gray Sloughs. The nine blacks include alphas 490M and 380F (I like watching her--she's a character and jumps straight up in the air!), 489M (often alone), the three yearlings "Blaze" (an excellent hunter and another one with lots of personality), "Bolt," and "Babysitter," plus the three pups (the only survivors of the 15 or 16 pups we watched at the Slough Creek dens in April and May.) The six gray Sloughs include 377M (he gets my vote for Most Beautiful Wolf!), 491M (limps on his right front, but very playful--he likes to jump on other wolves' backs!), plus the aptly named group of "Straight Tail" (the Beta female and my favorite of the four Slough mothers this year--very careful and observant) and the yearlings "Left Tail," "Sharp Right," and "Slight Right." At least three of last spring's Sloughs have disappeared, including two of the four mother wolves: the previous alpha female (very small and very aggressive) and "Stripe" (the one we called "not-380" back in the early days at the den.) 453M (who got caught in a coyote trap a year ago) is also gone, but then he had been expected to disperse since last winter.

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