Yellowstone wolf news

302M gains a pack! Nez Perce pack partly missing?

10-18-2003

Lamar Valley wolf watchers have grown familiar with former Leopold wolf 302M, who courted 3 Druid females last winter, and probably fathered one ore more of the Druid litters. After repeatedly trying to join the pack, only to be rejected again and again by famous old alpha male, 21M, 302F seems to have gained a pack.

He has been repeatedly seen with an uncollared gray female (not a Druid female as they are all accounted for) and 2 black pups. They favor the edge of the Lamar Valley and the Tower Junction area (such as Pleasant Valley).

Neither he nor the gray female are the pups' parents. There are several possibilities, but the most likely story seems to be that he has picked up the remnants of 251F's pack.

To recap, 251F was a disperser from the Druid Pack. Last winter she picked up a mate and a couple other adult or sub-adult wolves. In May it was verified she had a litter of 5 pups near Tower Junction. She was the only radio collared member of the new pack. Soon, before the new pack was given a name, she disappeared only to be found dead in July up on Mt. Washburn, cached by a grizzly bear!  It was not determined if the grizzly killed her. The fate of her pups and pack remained a mystery.

Meanwhile the Druids are thriving. I have had several reports of the beauty of the pack, now 17-strong striding across the Lamar Valley with the 9 surviving pups traveling right along.

The nearby Geode Pack seems to have had only 2 of its 5 pups survive to the fall, but the new Slough Creek pack has done well with 13 wolves recently seen.

I have no new news about the Leopold Pack or the Agate Pack except that the Washburn Road is now closed for the winter, making  observation of their territory in Antelope Creek more difficult.

More to the west, the Swan Lake Pack, now at 20 was recently seen (all 20) just a half mile from Mammoth Hot Springs. This pack is one of two in the Park which consists of all gray colored wolves. See below.

Typical Swan Lake Pack wolf encountered on the Glen Creek Trail.
Copyright © Tim Springer

Because the Swan Lake Pack is so large, it's an easy prediction that some will disperse this winter and probably to the north. Meanwhile, the Sheep Mountain Pack, north of the Park, is about to be "controlled" again. This pack suffers from heavy "control" every couple years and then stays away from trouble and is seldom seen.

Here is the USFWS rationale for the control from yesterday's "Grey wolf progress report"

"On [Oct] 15^th, 9 suspected members of the Sheep Mountain pack were reportedly feeding on a fresh 650lb. calf carcass near Daly Lake on private property, in Paradise Valley. Radio location data both from the ground and the air indicated the Sheep Mountain pack was in that area. WS [Wildlife Services] confirmed the depredation and set traps at the carcass. On the 16^th, 3 [full stomach] grey wolves, a 95lb ad male and two 70 & 75lb female yearlings or pups (since they were near both pup canine length and weight), were captured, radio-collared and released on site. Sign indicated another calf may have been attacked but WS could not find a carcass. The producer will continue to search for missing calves and has been riding both his ranch and the allotment intensively for the past several weeks based on suspicions of wolf-caused damage. Cattle are being removed from the Forest Service allotments and this producer and another that had no losses last year reported being 6-7 short this fall. A nearby rancher reported no losses but his calves were 100lbs lighter than normal. There is evidence that these wolves have been chasing/attacking cattle this summer. Earlier this summer a producer found part of a calf’s leg in the trail used by wolves and a bow hunter reportedly photographed wolves at a fresh cattle calf carcass. Efforts to locate the archer have been unsuccessful to date. Due to the apparent chronic nature of this pack’s pattern of cattle depredation, WS will be authorized to lethally remove 3-4 adult-sized wolves after we locate and monitor the pack a few times. The pack’s home range includes ranches with wintering cattle that have had depredations by this pack in previous years."

The size of the Swan Lake Pack and a reduction in the Sheep Mountain Pack could make for a general redistribution of packs and/or pack composition on the northern range outside the Park.

Far to the south in Yellowstone Park, Dr. Doug Smith got a good sighting of the Yellowstone Delta Pack. It's numbers have been hard to determine because it is, to coin a term, the "radio-collar-chewingist" pack in the ecosystem -- 17 members seen! That is certainly more than I expected.

Finally, Smith located just two radio signals from the central Yellowstone Nez Perce Pack, which was the Park's largest pack last winter with 24 members. Six members of the pack have radio collars. Moreover the 2 collared wolves located were quite a way apart, on opposite sides of the Central Plateau -- one in Hayden Valley and one in Nez Perce Creek.

Currently there are reports of wolves west of the Park in the Henry's Lake area. There was some thought it might be the Bechler Pack, but they are all accounted for in the SW corner of YNP.  It is possible some of the Nez Perce Pack have left the Park. Folks will recall this big pack left the Park in mass both in 2002 (they showed up near Ashton, Idaho) and last winter when after a long search they were found on the National Elk Refuge at Jackson. Suspicion is that both times the pack began its walkabout by leaving from the west entrance area.

I have noted that biologists are skeptical about the long term persistence of the large Nez Perce pack because they have the smallest prey base of any pack in the Park unless they learn to really kill the abundant bison. In fact Nez Perce does kill some bison, but not when bison are at the peak of their strength in the fall.

Finally, there have been no recent observations of the Rose Creek Pack, which abandoned Yellowstone to inhabit the Absaroka/Beartooth Wilderness just north of the Park. Elk hunting season there precludes low wolf tracking flights which could disrupt the elk hunt.

Information for this report came from Dr. Doug Smith, Rick McIntryre, the Grey Wolf Progress Report, Charlie McCurdy, and Tim Springer. Some of the speculation is my own.

  Copyright © 2003 Ralph Maughan