Here is the latest information I have been able to glean about the Yellowstone and Idaho wolf reintroductions. I also have some about the wolves in NW Montana.YELLOWSTONE
The Soda Butte Pack, which spent most of the summer north of Yellowstone National Park in the Stillwater River area of the Absaroka/Beartooth Wilderness, and had one pup; has recently moved south and has been patrolling the northern boundary of Yellowstone and the adjacent Absaroka/Beartooth Wilderness.A few weeks ago, the Crystal Creek Pack moved back from the Pelican Valley to Specimen Ridge (which is just south of the Lamar Valley). The Crystal Pack is the pack that has been frequently seen this summer by Park tourists.
Last Sunday (Sept. 24), I climbed to the top of Specimen Ridge right at Crystal Creek, and I walked along the top for a way. Unfortunately, I didn't see the wolves nor any sign of them, but then, the ridge forms a semi-circle about 18 miles long.
CENTRAL IDAHO
Ted Koch (pronounced Cook) addressed a seminar of Dr. Jay Anderson's at Idaho State University last Tuesday evening. The room was overflowing with interested people.Koch is the project leader of the Idaho Wolf recovery program.
He indicated that the program was more successful than hardly anyone involved with it had imagined because the wolves had kept away from populated areas. They had mostly remained in the vast central Idaho wilderness areas or in adjacent roadless and semi-roadless areas, since their reintroduction.
The wolves had used these areas in the late winter months, the spring, and the summer months too. As a result, the possibility of negative encounters with humans or livestock had been less than anticipated.
He also said that it was a sign that Idaho's wilderness areas provided complete habitat -- were not just scenic rock and ice like many other western wilderness areas.
FYI, the elevations along the Salmon River and its tributaries in the Frank Church and adjacent Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness areas range from about 1800 to 6000 feet. The ridge tops are typically about 8000 feet with a few areas slightly over 10,000 feet elevation. The wilderness canyon bottoms and breaks are undisturbed and excellent winter range.
Koch said that relations with ranchers and county commissioners had improved. He didn't discuss the continuing heat raised by rancher Gene Hussey who thinks wolf no. 13 killed his calf late last January.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is working on a contract with the Nez Perce tribe of Native Americans. The Nez Perce will eventually take over the Idaho wolf management duties. Idaho's legislature last January, in a snit about the wolf reintroduction, prohibited Idaho Fish and Game from having any role in the management of the reintroduced wolves.
After considerable wandering around the central Idaho wilderness areas early on, the wolves have ranged much less this summer.
Fifteen wolves were reintroduced last January. Young female B13 was soon shot, and contact was lost permanently with wolf B3 in late March. It was last observed in SW Montana and it was heading rapidly north. Koch believes the wolf is in NW Montana or in Canada.
Of the remaining wolves, 6 are paired. Seven remain by themselves. Wolf B10, wandered back and forth over 500 miles shortly after reintroduction. She was the most wandering wolf, but is now paired with B5.
B8 moved the least and B8 is paired with B6. B9 and B16 are also paired. Note: there was never a wolf "B1."
The Idaho elk hunting season is underway. The central Idaho wilderness areas are popular for very remote hunting of the large elk herds. Obviously, the presence of hunters is a threat to the wolves, the degree of which is presently impossible to ascertain.
It is not entirely clear what the Idaho wolves are eating because due to the ruggedness of the country (it is much more rugged in than in the northeast part of the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem where the Park wolves were introduced), finding the wolves' scat and observing kills is not easy in Idaho. Tentatively, Koch said the wolves appeared to be killing snowshoe hare, red squirrel, white-tailed deer and mule deer.
Last March aerial observation confirmed that B9 killed an elk on the Middle Fork of the Salmon River. The signs of the struggle on the ice, a long trail of blood, and B9 sitting in the winter sun beside the half-consumed elk, looking almost pregnant, were the basis for Koch's conclusion.
NW MONTANA
Koch also spoke of increasing success in controlling problem wolves in NW Montana, where natural recolonization by wolves began in the early 1980s. Koch produced a table showing a dramatic reduction in both time and cost of controlling wolves that had killed or harassed livestock. The most recent control action took only two hours. This was in western Montana (I believe near Phillipsburg). Most of the "controlled" wolves are transported to Glacier NP or adjacent wilderness areas where no livestock graze.I recently received the 1994 Annual Report of the Montana Wolf Working Group. It indicated that at the end of 1994, at least 6 packs resided in NW Montana. They contained about 60-70 wolves.
In 1994 there were 20 reports of wolf conflicts with livestock in Montana. "Field investigation confirmed that wolf harassment to cow/calf herds had occurred in [just] three cases." "In a one-week period, wolves from a single pack chased and attacked calves. . ." "Two calves had their legs broken by stampeding cows. One of the calves was destroyed; the other survived." The two yearling wolves (from the Sawtooth Pack) were relocated to Glacier NP. Subsequently, both wolves moved into Canada. In May 1995 the female was shot and the male was lost track of. Interestingly, this same male was later trapped by an Alberta trapper 225 miles north of Glacier NP release site.
The trapper who captured the male wolf was one of the trappers who had helped secure the wolves for the Yellowstone and central Idaho reintroductions.
The trapped male was with two females at the time of his capture.
The cost of all wolf control in Montana in 1994 was $2500. The value of the losses was $1772 (3 calves).
*The future*
Responding to a question about the future of reintroductions given the recent 40% cut of the program by Congress, Koch was very unsure.
He said that private funding might be available; there also might be enough funding to do a reintroduction anyway. There probably would not be enough money for monitoring. Ironically, this would mean that ranchers would be more likely to suffer if any wolves starting killing livestock.
Koch said they hadn't seen the congressional language. I haven't found anyone who has. The program is in the Interior Appropriations bill. This is one of the bills President Clinton has vowed to veto if it isn't substantially changed.
IMHO, Koch was very effective in not criticizing any politicians despite efforts to get him to express his candid views, or perhaps support our prejudices.
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