Last week eleven of the missing the Nez Perce Pack returned to their traditional range in the center of Yellowstone Park. No one knows where they went, but the likelihood that they were searching for food appears more probable.  On Nov. 13 Park wolf managers made a fortunate catch of 4 of them, including, incredibly the old alpha female 48F, who was born way back in 1996 on the Beartooth Front near Nye, MT. 

Dr. Doug Smith, head of the Yellowstone team said she was skinny and her "ears were tattered like an old cow elk." Equally important all four -- all gray females were skinny, ribs showing. The wolves were captured by aircraft in the Park's Hayden Valley.

While the population of this pack has been traditionally put at around 20 animals, Smith said a good count of the pack had not been made this year because they usually are quick to dart into the lodgepole pine and secondly the pack is rarely together, but rather spreads out over the Central Plateau and adjacent areas. It is possible that throughout most of 2003 the pack had only 12-13 wolves, and the 11 wolves now back in the Park are, in fact, the entire pack, except 72M who has taken up with the female wolf in the upper Green River far to the southeast.

Perhaps, by chance, four wolves in "fair to poor" condition were captured, but it seems more likely that this pack is running out of prey it can kill while maintaining weight.  Ungulates in the area are mostly bison, with a dwindling Madison/Firehole elk herd, and a few hard to kill moose, all of which spend their winter in the deep snow and often in the geyser basins.

In recent winters, Montana State University ecologist Dr. Robert A. Garrott and his graduate students have observed the decline of the non-migratory elk herd that winters in the Madison/Firehole area. Winter studies show the pack preys heavily on the elk, especially the calves, but that they do kill bison calves and rarely adult bison.

For some reason, Mollie's Pack, which lives next to the Nez Perce pack and spends much of the winter in the deep snow Pelican Valley, is looking strong. Two members of that pack were captured last week too, a pup in good condition and wolf 194M, first radio collared back in 2000 when he was a couple years old. Dr. Smith said 194 is doing very well, "he was a real pig . . . kind of looking more like a black bear from the distance." 174F is still Molly's Pack alpha female despite the broken leg she sustained last spring.

Mollie's Pack does migrate out of the Pelican in December and hunts deer and elk in the North Fork of the Shoshone, east of YNP.  They return to the Pelican in March to take down the winter weakened bison. Grizzly bears have noticed this and are coming out of hibernation early in Pelican. We, the Wolf Recovery Foundation, are helping fund the annual project to the study late winter bison, wolf, grizzly interactions in the Pelican.

Perhaps the Nez Perce pack is seeking a food situation similar to what has worked for Mollies' Pack. My hunch is the pack has learned there are remains of elk hunt outside the Park in November, but no one has observed them outside the Park long enough to see what they were eating, so this is my conjecture.

Update late on 11-17-03

I got a number of emails that basically said "well, if the wolves were skinny, why didn't the Park Service give them some food?''

The answer is this. The Park Service strives to maintain and restore natural conditions, so wildlife in the Park are never artificially fed.

In this particular instance Doug Smith added that giving a skinny wolf one meal wouldn't make a difference. Secondly these 4 wolves were doing well securing food at the time of their brief capture. They were captured in the Hayden Valley, which is an elk migration route to the Park's northern range. The 4 wolves had recently killed 2 elk, and since they were radio collared on Oct. 13 they have killed 2 more. It looks like they are getting their chance to fatten up.

It is possible these 4 wolves were by random chance, the skinny ones of the pack. I spoke with Mike Jimenez who is watching the latest incarnation of the Green River pair, which now includes 72M who is an old wolf and was thought to have been the alpha male of the Nez Perce Pack (or perhaps was/is his brother 70M). Jimenez said 72M appeared to be "running well" and from a not-so-far distance, he appeared to be in good shape.

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