While Yellowstone Park's wolf population tumbled in 2005, Wyoming wolves outside Yellowstone Park have had a good summer, most of their pups survived and the population has grown despite about the usual amont of control for livestock depredations.

Despite this population growth, the total wolf population in Wyoming for 2005 will be down due to the Yellowstone population drop.

There are two new wolf packs, and two old ones that were thought to have been extirpated, but have revived, possibly because new wolves moved into a an obvious habitat niche.

There is a new wolf pack just north of the long-time Teton Pack, the Pacific Creek Pack. It consists of at least 5 adult wolves. Whether they have pups is unknown. Efforts to trap any pack members were hindered by the large grizzly bear population in the Pacific Creek, Pilgrim Creek, Buffalo Valley area. I went looking for them on Labor Day, but saw no wolf sign . . . plenty of grizzly sign and warning signs around though. They have killed a few cattle on the Pacific Creek grazing allotment which is inside Grand Teton National Park and the adjacent Teton Wilderness. I won't bother this time with a rant about the grazing allotments' location.

The Wood River Pack is in the general location of last year's Owl Creek Pack, which grew fat on the abundant game, but killed too many cows and even killed and ate a horse.

The Flat Creek Pack is the name that has been given 253M's pack. 253M, of course, or "Limpy," is the former Druid beta male who also made a brief career move to Utah several years ago.  His pack consists of 3 adults and 5 pups. Earlier this year there was a 4th adult, by that wolf has left the pack.

The Daniel Pack, once the largest in Wyoming outside Yellowstone Park, was thought to have been terminated last year, but at least 3 wolves are back in the pack's old territory in and near the Wyoming Range on the west side of the Green River Basin.

Mange has suddenly disappeared in Wyoming wolves. A number of packs just to the east of Yellowstone Park had mange for several years -- Absaroka, Sunlight Basin and Beartooth. Mike Jimenez, who is coordinating mange research for the Greater Yellowstone area for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, said he hasn't seen it this year. Is isn't just a matter of mangy wolves dying because collared wolves with mange last year don't have it now.

Speaking of diseases there is no evidence of parvo-virus pup mortality in Wyoming.  Although it hasn't been confirmed yet by laboratory analysis, parvo is the suspected cause of much of the high YNP pup mortality this year.

Jimenez and other biologists are doing a wolf summer predation study similar to that in Yellowstone Park. They fitted several wolves with GPS collars. As in Yellowstone, the study has been complicated by all but one of the wolves wandering out of range.  In Yellowstone the real prize was the one on the alpha male of the Geode Pack, but soon afterward the Leopolds attacked the Geodes, killed him, and his pack dispersed.

Regarding the Grand Teton NP summer predation study, there was one particularly interesting event -- about it the USFWS recently wrote: "On the 31st [of August], Jimenez’s volunteer ground crew was checking out GPS telemetry clusters (Grand Teton NP research on wolf summer predation patterns.) This site had 6-8 hits- locations are taken every 6 hours indicating wolves were staying there for an extended period] from a Teton pack wolf and they discovered the carcass of a yearling moose. At another cluster of 6-8 ‘hits’ less than a mile away they eventually found a 2-day-old carcass of a 45-50lb gray female pup. It still had its milk teeth and had been scavenged on by birds possibly coyotes. There were grizzly bear tracks the same age as the wolf tracks next to the pup’s carcass. Jimenez went to the location and helped examine it. There was abundant grizzly bear sign where both the moose and pup were found. Examination of the pup’s hide showed large hemorrhaged canine marks puncturing the hide across its back, indicating it had been killed by a grizzly bear. This was excellent and thorough work by the volunteer field crew. They didn’t initially find anything at the second GPS cluster, but they did thorough ground search of the surrounding area, finally found a pup’s remains- a unique observation. Thanks for the extra effort, ‘luck’ typically involves hard work."

Jimenez said that presently the Teton Pack has about 12 members. Recently an old pack member was euthanized. USFWS wrote: "On the 29, Grand Teton National Park rangers received a report about of an old male wolf that was ‘sickly’ and dragging his hindquarters. Once a black wolf, he was now all gray from age. Rangers found it and watched him an hour until Jimenez got arrived. Mike walked up to him and darted him from the ground and reported he was a very old & emaciated [but still 100lbs] with worn-down teeth. He was euthanized and sent in for examination to determine the exact cause of his injuries. He was probably a Teton pack member."

There are still a number of wolf packs in the Meeteetse/Carter Mountain area: Greybull, Carter Mountain, and South Fork Shoshone. There has been some control of these wolves due to livestock killing.

After spending 3 summers working on the book "Hiking Wyoming's Teton and Washakie Wilderness," I am immensely pleased about these three packs, plus the Washakie and the new Pacific Creek Pack. When Lee Mercer and I were doing the research the only wolf pack in the two wilderness areas was the Washakie Pack, and its continuation at the time seemed doubtful.