Wolf Collaring in Yellowstone to begin-
The Yellowstone wolf team will begin their annual winter capture and radio-collaring of wolves on Monday Jan. 11, 1999. Plans are to collar and/or recollar about thirty wolves. Last year plans were to collar 45 wolves, but actual operations fell way short of this (27 collared) due to bad weather and difficulty capturing several packs, especially the Chief Joseph Pack.
The wolves are collared so they can be tracked for scientific study and management. Upon capture the wolves health is analyzed, their length, weight, and sex in recorded, and a blood sample taken. Much of the information that ends up on this page would is derived from tracking of the radio-collared wolves, whose number steadily declines due to loss of radio collars (several have been chewed off, or have come off), collar malfunction, and wolf mortality.
Collaring is controversial with some because they see it as making the wolves less wild and possibly facilitating the slaughter of the wolves should Judge Downes removal decision be upheld by the U.S. Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals.
All Yellowstone Country wolves have numbers now-
In 1996 and 1997, wolves received numbers as soon as they (as pups) were spotted. The were many problems with this due to pup mortality (especially in 1997) and difficulty of positive reidentification. This the pups were not given numbers until early January (or in several earlier cases when their corpse was recovered). The ID numbers of wolves by pack were recently provided by the Yellowstone wolf team. These tables are current as of January 5, 1999.
Domestic dogs predicted first likely depredations of Jackson Hole wolves-
Now that wolves seem to have seriously inhabited Jackson Hole, some folks are worrying about what they will kill besides elk, moose, and deer. There are a fair number of cattle in parts of Jackson Hole, although numbers have declined in recent years as home and resorts have replaced cattle ranches. A few landowners got a special deal back when Grand Teton National Park was created and they had their grazing allotments in the new (enlarged) national park grandfathered. There are also cows in the summer in some of the surrounding mountains on the Bridger-Teton National Forest. This situation is really no different than the other lands adjacent to Yellowstone National Park where cattle and sheep allotments exist on national forests. We have seen the result (minor predation).
Some folks think the conflict is more likely to be with domestic dogs and livestock dogs. Wolves view dogs as wolves. They have killed about five dogs to date in the Yellowstone country and a similar number in Idaho. They especially don't like tracking hounds.
A large number of people live in the southern part of Jackson Hole. Homes here are distributed throughout the semi-rural country which is also home to 90% of the mule deer winter range in Jackson Hole. There is evidence the deer have already encountered the wolves, and are observed by some local folks to be acting "nervous." Many of these folks have dogs and so do others who use the mountain country with their dogs. Of course, most know that in this scenic wild country, dogs can, and are regularly killed or injured by elk, moose, bear, coyotes, and porcupine. Nevertheless, the wolves will kill some dogs, and some owners will make a stink. I think that is a fair prediction. Anti-wolf groups will seize on this and ask, "whose child is next?" Some things are just easy to predict.
Most people who have dogs in rural or wild, or semi-wild country, however, already recognize that other animals are threats to their dogs, just as the dogs are threats to the animals.
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Copyright ©1998 Ralph Maughan
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Ralph Maughan PO Box 8264, Pocatello, ID 83209