Update on the Yellowstone Wolves June 1995:
more wolf pups
It has been tentatively confirmed that the Soda Butte Pack, has a litter of pups. This is second litter born to wolves reintroduced to YNP last January and released in late March.
A routine monitoring flight over the rugged Absaroka - Beartooth Wilderness reported that they saw one pup walking behind a female member of the Soda Butte Pack. Just one pup was observed, but others are likely in the area. I reported last week that the Soda Butte pack (which has been seldom observed by Yellowstone Park visitors because it removed itself to a very remote location) was actively killing coyotes and digging out their pups and eating them in the area where the alpha female had shown few movements in the last several weeks.
The remaining member of the ill-fated Rose Creek pack remains in the Rose Creek pen with her 8 pups. [Note: the packs were named after the site of their original holding pens, not their present location].
I just spent 5 days in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, including Yellowstone Park. I didn't see any wolves, but I saw a lot of wolf watchers who set up scopes in the Lamar Valley and look for members of the Crystal Creek pack. This, the largest pack, has been quite visible from the NE Entrance road. People have seen them make a number of kills and interact with bison, elk, grizzly bears and coyotes.
A staff member of the Greater Yellowstone Coalition told me yesterday that the grizzly bears and the wolves in the Lamar Valley seem to have "worked out a system" :-) -- the wolves kill the elk and feed for a while, then a grizzly moves in and claims the kill. In at least one case, however, the wolves were seen chasing a grizzly from their kill. It was so pleasant last Saturday walking along in the Lamar Valley, knowing that at last here was a place with all the original predators and prey of prehistoric Yellowstone -- grizzly bears and black bears, cougar, wolves, coyotes, fox, badgers, bobcats, bison, elk, moose, deer, and antelope. Many of us have waited so long for this day.
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) copyright © 1995 Ralph Maughan
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