Wyoming Wolves outside Yellowstone Faring Well

The wolves of Wyoming outside Yellowstone Park are faring well, most have new pups, and they are avoiding cattle.

There are now probably three packs of wolves in the Sunlight Basin area, or more generally the mountain region between the NE side of Yellowstone and the plains at Cody, Wyoming.

There is the Sunlight Pack, which now has its second litter of pups, four black ones. There is also the new Absaroka Pack, consisting of 153F and 164M, plus another uncollared adult wolf. They have five pups.

Number 9F denned, and she has an uncollared companion. Mike Jimenez recently examined her den site and found no pups, but then she would have moved them to a rendezvous site by now anyway. No. 9, the former alpha female of the Rose Creek Pack, will be the alpha of what will be called "the Beartooth Pack" if she and her companion have pups.

An article today in the Billings Gazette by Michael Milstein indicates the wolves are passing through cattle on their way to hunt deer and elk, and have not harmed the cattle. . . so far an ideal situation. Number 9, of course, lived in Yellowstone for years and it unlikely to consider livestock to be prey. 

Further to the south, the Gros Ventre Pack has now grown to ten members--the original three adults, the two surviving pups from last year, and five new pups. A forest fire burned very close to their den site in early June. Jimenez told me the fire did not disturb the wolves very much. They would howl at the firefighters at night. In a stroke of luck the grazing permittee in the area took what is termed "non-use" on his grazing allotment this year because of the fire and the wolves presence. They inhabit the Gros Ventre River and its side drainages, mostly in the Gros Ventre Wilderness just east of Jackson, Wyoming.

The Teton Pack, led by no. 24F and her pups from 1999, which are now 15 months old, have expanded their range to the southeast. They still use Grand Teton National Park a little bit, but the core of their range is still the Gros Ventre River drainage. Moreover, they have expanded over the top into the upper Green River drainage in the Mosquito Lake, Union Pass, and Green River area. This area has over 10,000 cattle in the summer, but her pack has left them alone.

Addition 7-25-2000. There is a lone wolf in the upper Green River area/Pinedale area that is suspected of killing 4 sheep. The wolf appears not to be associated with any pack. US Fish and Wildlife Service has issued a permit the wolf toWildlife Services to shoot the wolf if they see it while they are out shooting coyotes.