Teton Pack alpha female found dead.
Was she killed by her own pack?

5-7-2003, update 5-8

At the end of April this year Mike Jimenez recovered the body of 200F, the alpha female of the Teton Pack, inside Grand Teton National Park. Her radio collar had been emitting a mortality signal.

Wolf manager Jimenez told me she had only been dead a short while, so her body showed the probable, but he cautions "not certain" cause of her death -- other wolves.

For the last two years the Teton Pack has produced double litters. While the current alpha male has never been radio collared, the females that had pups last year were collared -- 200F and the younger 228F. Double litters allowed pack to grow from just five at the beginning of 2001 to 23 wolves by last winter.

This spring the pack is only thought to have just one litter (although past statements to that effect have proven wrong). 200F denned and 228F seemed to be on the outs. She left the den area frequently and hunted alone about 15 miles to the south in the pack's winter range near the Gros Ventre River. A recent U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Report said 228F "looked thin and scruffy."

After Jimenez found the body of 200F, however, he located the rest of the pack. They were not far away at the den site, and 228F was in the den! As of May 6, Jimenez reported 228F was still at the den.

This pack is not as closely watched at the Druid Peak Pack in Yellowstone, but one has to wonder if this was is a case like that of the late Druid alpha female 40F, who was killed by her own pack, quite likely including her long suffering sister 42F and one or more of her grown daughters?

Jimenez cautions that other causes have not been completely ruled out and that 200F's body has been sent to the Ashland, Oregon lab for a necropsy.

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A word about 200F's history. She was born in 1997 to the Thorofare Pack, part of that pack's only litter. The Thorofare Pack was destroyed in Feb. 1998 when its alpha female 30F was killed in an avalanche and after 35M, the alpha male, was attacked and killed by the rival Soda Butte Pack (now renamed the Yellowstone Delta Pack). The 10 month old pups were left on their own in the deep snow of Yellowstone Park's remote Thorofare country. The pups, however, left the rugged snowbound area, migrating out to ungulate winter range west and also south of Cody. See "Thorofare Pack Decimated by Backcountry Brawl and Avalanche."

200F later moved south and joined the new Gros Ventre Pack which had formed in Jackson Hole, but spent almost all of its time to east in the Gros Ventre Mountains and wilderness area. 200F left the Gros Ventre in about late 2000, however, and joined the then struggling Teton Pack which had lost its original alpha female 24F (from the Soda Butte Pack) to illegal poison. Story on death of 24F.

228F is not 200F's sister or daughter. 228F is the daughter of the Teton Pack's founder, 24F.

Update May 8, 2003

The "Jackson Hole News and Guide" did a story on the death of 200F May 9, saying that 200F was the wolf that had been wandering back and forth and into the Gros Ventre, but this is wrong. It was 228F who was wandering, and it is 228F who is now in the pack's traditional den. Another article said it was unknown if there were pups, but Mike Jimenez said it was clear that 200F, who had occupied the den, had been nursing.

In related news, officials killed a lone female, 4-5 years old who had been chasing cattle a number of times in the nearby Buffalo Valley. She was uncollared, but clearly not a member of the Teton Pack. Jimenez said she was a large wolf. Genetic analysis might determine where she came from.

Because some folks might be quick to blame the Teton Pack for livestock problems, it is important that this was a lone wolf who recently showed up from an unknown place.

  Copyright © 2003 Ralph Maughan