One of the Sawtooth yearlings, wolf 68F, originally brought to Yellowstone as a pup from the Sawtooth Pack in NW Montana, has been captured near Pinedale, Wyoming after killing as many as 41 domestic sheep. While the news article didn't mention it, this is the first verified instance in Wyoming of a reintroduced wolf killing livestock.

The Casper Star-Tribune reported today that wolf was last located in the NW corner of Yellowstone, but disappeared only to be captured by Animal Damage Control about sixty miles SE of Yellowstone near the Wind River Mountains near Pinedale.

Ed Bangs, head of the wolf recovery effort in the Northern Rockies, said the wolf had killed perhaps 38 lambs and 3 ewes. The wolf was captured and released inside Yellowstone park just north of Yellowstone Lake. So far the wolf has remained near the area of its release.

Defenders of Wildlife will reimburse the rancher who lost the sheep. The news article indicated that this rancher has also lost sheep to grizzly bears and coyotes this year.  It is notable that grizzly bears seem to be moving back into the Wind River Mountains in a big way after an absence of about sixty years -- something that pleases me greatly.

Does raising wild wolf pups in a pen work?
Raising pups with their mother in an enclosure (such as the Rose Creek female, no. 9 and her eight pups in 1995) was a great success, but so far bringing orphan pups to an enclosure to be put with unrelated wolves has not yet been very successful.  There were ten Sawtooth pups. So far four are dead, two legally shot while killing sheep, one dead by an M44, one hit by an automobile, and all but two unaccounted for.  In a similar situation, three orphaned Boulder Pack pups were placed in the Running Creek enclosure, which contained adult Idaho wolves B7M and B11F, the adults quickly killed two of them.

Here is some additional information on this story.  The Jackson Hole News reported that the predation took place in the Upper Green River Area in the foothills of the Gros Ventre Mountains/Wilderness rather than the Wind Rivers near Pinedale.

They quoted the voluble Ed Bangs, US Fish and Wildlife Service's head of wolf recovery, as saying, "In hindsight, it sounds like the idea sucked [bringing the Sawtooth pups to Yellowstone and raising them in an enclosure]." "Out of 10, five end up dead or get in trouble." Bangs continued, "Children without a lot of parental supervision don't turn out that good. They need a parents to teach them how to hunt and what to hunt."