Thirty-three wolves radio collared in Yellowstone Park

Thirty-three wolves radio collared in Yellowstone Park

1-29-2005, update Feb. 1, note Feb. 4.

Winter radio collaring in Yellowstone Park is almost ever. Complete results with collar, weight, sex, and number will follow in a future article.
Perhaps the most interesting results was a negative -- the failure to find long-standing Mollie's Pack, derived from one of the first three packs reintroduced to Yellowstone -- the Crystal Creek Pack in 1995. Doug Smith, head of the Yellowstone wolf team thought it possible that hard core pack had dissipated. The pack mostly lived in Pelican Valley where there is ample summer prey, but in winter the pack became one of the Park's most successful at preying on bison. Throughout its existence it has had to regularly battle the valley's numerous grizzly bears to keep its kills.

Among the 30 collared wolves were 2 Druids. Well known Druid 302M was recollared and the new alpha male, who has been called "the New Black" for some time, probably originating in the Leopold Pack, will now be wolf 480M. The 2 wolves were in excellent condition.

The Slough Creek Pack, which is now dominating the Druids, got 4 radio collars in addition to the 2 or 3 already in the pack. Both the alpha male and the beta male were collared for the time, and they are big boys. Alpha male 490M weighed 126 pounds, and so did the beta 489M -- 126 pounds.

The Geode Pack saw a female, the alpha male and a pup collared. While the alpha female in the Geode's has long been small wolf 106F, the pack has gone through 3-4 alpha males in the last 2 years. The big surprise was the current alpha male originated from the Yellowstone Delta pack, miles away in the Park's remote SE corner. This wolf, 227M, weighed 121 pounds. Smith noted that it is possible 106F has been displaced because 483F (newly collared) was observed to be in pre-estrus (heat). It is not uncommon for more than one pack female to mate during the winter season.

Three members of the Nez Perce Pack were collared. They were only in fair condition. This same thing was observed a year ago. Prey stress might explain why this pack of all gray wolves so often wanders far and wide.

The new Biscuit Basin Pack got 3 collars. This pack of about 10 that inhabits the geyser basins was in the worst condition Smith has seen wolves in the Park. They were skinny and one or two of them had burns from hot springs. There is little winter prey in the area in the winter except bison. Perhaps the burns came from difficult chases through thermal waters. Note from Feb. 4. One of these emaciated wolves, a female, wolf 475F, was found dead on Feb. 2. She was probably killed by another wolf pack -- Nez Perce or Cougar Creek. When collared she only weighed 57 pounds!

The Cougar Creek, NE of West Yellowstone was in excellent condition. They got 3 collars. The new Gibbon Meadow Pack got two collars and were in excellent condition. The 20+ member Leopold Pack got 5 collars, Swan Lake got 2 and Agate Creek 3. Four of these last 10 were recollars. Leopold, Swan Lake, and Agate Creek wolves captured were in good condition.

Members of the Agate
Creek Pack (note the white
wolf).

Photo taken September 2004.

Copyright Corina Orth.

Thanks to Elli H. Radinger
of Wolf Magazin
for making this photo available to the Wolf Recovery Foundation.

Update. Feb. 1, 2005. Yellowstone Park wolf team members collared 3 wolves in the remote Yellowstone Delta Pack. Two were pups, but one, numbered 487M, is the alpha male. Dr. Doug Smith said this 3-4 year old male was "a sight to behold." He is a beautiful wolf. Hope to have a photo of him soon. The wolf weighed 132 pounds, the biggest wolf of the year.

The Delta Pack, more than any other, tends to chew off radio collars, so the collars were given metal plating. Chewing tends to occur less on dominant wolves, so he might keep his collar. The alpha female was, for a long time the only Delta wolf with a collar, despite the deployment of over a dozen collars in the pack.

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