Winter Comes For Yellowstone Wolves

11/30/95.

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Here is some recent information about Yellowstone's wolves and the coming winter.

The reintroduced wolf packs are beginning their first winter offreedom, and biologists are optimistic that they will fare well.

After spending much of the summer in the high country to the north and to the south of the their reintroduction site, the Lamar Valley,
all of the wolves have recently returned to the Lamar.

There are 22 of them -- 13 from the original release and 9 pups.Eight of the pups were born to the Rose Creek female (wolf no. 9)
whose mate (no. 10) was shot last spring near Red Lodge, Montana. One pup was born to the Soda Butte Pack.

Norm Bishop, a YNP biologist, told me this morning that they are optimistic that the wolves will stay in the Lamar Valley all winter and not migrate northward out of the park into the farmlandand subdivisions that are filling the Paradise Valley between thePark's North Entrance and Livingston, Montana.

During mild winters in Yellowstone, most of the elk that migratedown to the Lamar, stay there all winter. In hard winters, a substantial number migrate westward from Lamar, toward Mammoth Hot Springs and then northward to the Park's North Entrance at Gardiner, Montana, and beyond.

Bishop said he thinks the wolves will stay in Yellowstone this winter regardless of the weather. During a mild winter there are
plenty of elk in the Lamar for the wolves to kill. During a severe winter there is even more meat in the form of winter-killed elk.

Of course, that the wolves will winter in Park is not certain. For example, during Thanksgiving weekend, all of the wolves
suddenly left Yellowstone. Two packs went northward into theAbsaroka-Beartooth Wilderness, but the third pack went NE into the
Clark's Fork (of the Yellowstone) valley were there are scatteredranches and summer homes as well as deer and elk.

Since then, all have returned safely to the Lamar.

Bishop told me that the wolves haven't showed the territorial hostility that is common among wolf packs. He speculated that it might be explained by the abundance of food in the Park. The ranges of the three packs in the Lamar overlap. Lone female no. 7F also frequents the Lamar, although she has ventured farther west than any of the other wolves, visiting Gardiner's Hole, Indian Creek, and Electric Peak.

The packs are all aware of each other's presence., however; and as you all know, wolf no. 8M from the Crystal Bench pack recently
joined widowed wolf no. 9F from the Rose Creek pack to replace wolf 10M, the pups' father, who was shot dead by Chad McKittrick.

The only negative interaction observed to date came recently when the Rose Creek pair, no. 8 and 9 were observed chasing another
wolf (one of the sub-adults from the Crystal Bench pack, 8's old pack ) away from their pups. The chase lasted about 1/4 mile.

So far the winter in Yellowstone has been mild and wet, and the park awaits the transfer of about 15 more wolves from British Columbia.

Enough money has been raised privately to assure that the reintroductions planned for this winter will actually take place (assuming that other complications don't arise).

p.s.: My information came from Norm Bishop and an article in the
most recent Jackson Hole News, plus an AP story on private funding
for the wolves.