Female from Rose Creek joins with no. 9F and partner. Wyoming wolf news March 2001

Female from Rose Creek joins with no. 9F and partner.
Wyoming Wolf Update March 2001

3-13-2001

There is a lot of interesting news about the wolves in Wyoming outside Yellowstone NP (and lapping just over into Montana).

No. 9s pair becomes a trio.

Most folks will probably think the number one story is that the Beartooth Pair, famous wolf 9F and her uncollared companion, have been joined by wolf 77F, a black female born to 9's former Rose Creek Pack back in 1997. No 9 is 77's grandmother, and because no. 9 may be beyond her pup-bearing years, maybe she will be a grandmother wolf this spring. Wolf 77F had dispersed from the Rose Creek Pack last fall and had been wandering the Sunlight Basin area east of Yellowstone National Park.

Radio-collaring the Sunlight Basin Pack.

Radio-collaring is tough east of the Park, but Mike Jimenez, Ed Bangs, and Fish and Wildlife Service Special Agent Tim Eicher were able to dart two males in the Sunlight Basin Pack. They were the long time alpha male 52M and a male yearling. 52M, who was born in the Rose Creek Pack to No. 9F and 8M back in 1996, weighed a good 120 pounds. The yearling male (no number yet) weighed 113 pounds. The pack consists of the alpha pair 52M and former Druid female 41F (radio collar no longer working). There are also several yearlings in the pack (which come and go) and 4 or 5 pups from 2000.

New pack on the Beartooth Front?

There have been a number of reported sightings of a group of uncollared wolves in the foothills of the Beartooth Mountains, west and southwest of Red Lodge, Montana. Folks will remember this was the country claimed by the Soda Butte Pack and the part of the original Nez Perce Pack back in 1996-7. The whole country teems with deer and elk, but these packs were moved back then under what I'd call political pressure.

Washakie Pack is reborn-

Just a year ago the official word was there was just one wolf in the Dunoir area, the former home of the Washakie Pack. However, this summer it was obvious several wolves were in the area, and one, no. 147M, formerly from the Chief Joseph Pack, was trapped and recollared. This week observers got a good look at the pack, and it has at least 6 members, including a "big" alpha male (who is uncollared). Speculation is that the pack had pups last spring, but that can't be determined with finality until they are handled because well fed pups are hard to tell from adults at the present age of 11 months.

Jackson Hole wolf news-

The Gros Ventre pack is generally not tracked due to lack of radio collars, but they mostly live on the elk that are dispersed to the east of the Elk Refuge. The 4-membered Teton Pack frequents the Wyoming Game and Fish feedgrounds up the Gros Ventre River. Sometimes the elk stop moving after the kill, and other times the elk move to another feedground (there are 3 feedgrounds in the drainage). This irritates some folks in Wyoming Game and Fish because it disrupts their hay distribution calculations. The public presence of these 4 wolves also spreads the inevitable rumors that the wolves are wiping out the elk. In fact a pack of 4 wolves will kill about 30 to 50 elk (or "elk equivalents") a year. There are 12 to 14-thousand elk in the Jackson Herd. &$#2&** idiots!!

There is increasing public discussion of shutting down the elk feedgrounds because they are breeding grounds of disease. Some conservationists say the elk should be encouraged to migrate to their natural winter range in the Green River drainage.

The adjacent states of Idaho and Montana do very little (to no) feeding of wintering ungulates.

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Ralph Maughan PO Box 8264, Pocatello, ID 83209