Former Washakie Pack Wolf Joins a Northern Idaho Pack:
R132M joins the Snow Peak Pack
Sept. 7, 1999, Additions 9-8, 9-25-99
This is an amazing story. One of the pups from the old Washakie Pack (now 2½ years old) , born 30 miles SE of Yellowstone, has joined the northernmost known wolf pack in Idaho. This news comes from the latest report of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Wolf R132M, who had wandered northwestward, up through Yellowstone and into SW Montana before he crossed the Continental Divide into Idaho last spring, is now in northern Idaho. He had unfortunately killed a few sheep when he came to Idaho. He was captured and transported to the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness Area in north central Idaho. From there he went north and joined the Snow Peak Peak, which lives in the North Fork of the Clearwater/St. Joe River Divide country.
The Snow Peak Pack has an undetermined number of members. It is led by wolf B31M and B20F, some or all of the five yearlings born in 1998, and possibly some pups born this year. It ranges in steep heavily forested backcountry, and is rarely seen.
Number R132M is the brother of the late R133M, who joined with R24F to found the Teton Pack in the last year. 132's and 133's litter mates -- 134? and 138? are not radio collared. They may or may not be among the wolves presently back in the Dunoir Valley area where the Washakie Pack was formed.
The Snow Peak Pack and the nearby Kelly Creek Pack range over most of the northern Idaho country from the Montana border on the east to the Saint Joe River on the north, the Mallard-Larkins area on the west, and U.S. Highway 12 on the south.
The steep northern Idaho country of the Snow Peak Pack and the Kelly Creek Pack.
This view is above the confluence canyon of the North Fork of the Clearwater River
(immediately below the conifers) and Kelly Creek Canyon (in the middle distance)
© Ralph Maughan August 1999.Elk herds in the north central Idaho area began to decline about 1994, and Idaho's new anti-predator Fish and Game Commission will probably start to blame the wolves. Presently they are blaming black bears and cougar, and are planning a big kill off of bears and cougars as soon as they figure out how to do it wiithout provoking a citizen's initiative on the ballot.
9-25-99. The alpha male of the Snow Peak Pack, B31M, has had a weak radio collar for a long time. Therefore, long periods without locating his radio signal are expected. However, B31 has not been visually sighted for a long time now, and the entry of R132M into the pack suggests that this wolf born southeast of Yellowstone maybe now the alpha male.
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