Are Wolves About to Come to Jackson Hole?
A recent news story related how Ed Bangs recently told residents of Jackson, Wyoming, to prepare for wolves coming into Jackson Hole. Of course, about this time last year, we were expecting the Soda Butte Pack to follow the elk south into that big valley, but they stopped a bit south of Moran. Surprisingly, they returned to winter in the deep snow country of southern Yellowstone Park. Here they came into competition with the Thorofare Pack, which was destroyed by their attack and also by an avalanche. Five of the Thorofare pups, now yearlings, did make it through the winter, however, by leaving the area.
Story Last Year:
Soda Butte Pack Moves South of Yellowstone.Recently here has been an unconfirmed report of wolves in Jackson Hole, and it may be true; or it could be some large coyotes, of which there are plenty in the area. Two University of Wyoming graduate students, Rachel Wigglesworth and Nate McClennen, are conducting a baseline study of Jackson Hole coyotes so that scientists can judge the effects of the inevitable wolf migration into the valley. Wigglesworth estimates there are 200-300 coyotes in the valley.
This year wolf movement into Jackson Hole seems more likely because of the large number of 2 1/2 year-old wolves in Yellowstone -- the prime age to disperse. Yearlings sometimes disperse too. In addition there are the various Washakie and Thorofare yearlings wandering the country about ten miles north of the northern margins of Jackson Hole. Unlike the tightly-knit Soda Butte Pack, the masters of country between Yellowstone Lake and the southern border of the Park, these yearlings may not have much fidelity to that territory. With the elk moving south for the winter, they may well follow them.
In preparation for dispersals to the south and southeast from Yellowstone, Bangs is hiring two full time personnel to manage wolves in Wyoming. They will soon be on board.
Close to 10,000 elk winter in Jackson Hole on the National Elk Refuge and in nearby areas. While most photos of the refuge, including mine, show lush meadows beneath the Gros Ventre Mountains, in fact the Refuge is directly bounded by the small city of Jackson to its south and by the busy Jackson Hole Highway on its west. Grand Teton National Park is to its north and the Gros Ventre Wilderness to its east. Wolves on the Refuge would be big excitement. Their presence would certainly produce lots of wolf watchers.
Did 29M Become Alpha of a new Thorofare Pack?
In my last report I told how no. 29M had left his Nez Perce pack and was located with the sole radio-collared Thorofare yearling, no. 129F. There may be more to the story. He was recently tracked with three other wolves in the territory of the Soda Butte Pack in the area between Heart Lake and Yellowstone Lake. 29M has lost his radio collar, but telemetry indicated neither the Nez Perce Pack or Soda Butte was in the area. He was likely then with the Thorofare yearlings. One can speculate that he left, or was driven, from his old pack -- the Nez Perce -- and he may have teamed up these youngsters.
I asked Ed Bangs why an alpha male would leave his pack. Bangs reminded me that one possible hypothesis is that 29M is the famous "escape artist" wolf, but which was left nearly toothless due to his many encounters with the Nez Perce enclosure. He may have lost to a "more-toothed" wolf in intrapack competition. That would have been with one of the two remaining Sawtooth 2-year-olds now in the Nez Perce Pack.
The Thorofare yearlings and the Washakie yearlings are candidates to move toward Jackson Hole, although 29M is not familiar with the area.
Number 29 fathered a litter with his sister, the late 39F inside the Nez Perce pen in 1997. Of the three pups, only one is known to be alive, 92M, now a yearling with the Nez Perce Pack.
Urbigkits' Lawsuit Fails-
Jim and Cat Urbigkit, who live near the Wind River Mountains in the vicinity of Pinedale, Wyoming, have long maintained there exists a native wolf population in the area, a distinct sub-species from the wolves reintroduced to Yellowstone. They opposed the wolf reintroduction, and they sued and became part of the big lawsuit with the Farm Bureau, Earth Justice Defense League and others, whose separate lawsuits were combined by Judge Williams Downes. Downes rejected the Urbigkits' arguments, but they have continued to maintain there is a local native wolf population. They recently went to court asking an immediate halt to the killing of livestock-depredating wolves for fear the native wolves would be killed. This was prompted by the recent dispatch of the livestock-harassing and killing canid near Kemmerer, Wyoming. Results on the status, and maybe the origin of this wolf-like, animal should be available in a week.
In the late winter of 1996-7, a wolf was lassoed by a rancher on a snowmobile. It had been killing his sheep in an area south of Pinedale. The origin of this, the Big Sandy wolf, was never determined, although it was a wolf and was not part of the reintroduction nor was it closely related to wolves in Montana. About the same time, a canid was shot south of Cody, Wyoming. The Urbigkits argued that all these instances have been discounted by officials.
The judge has refused to issue an injunction.
Back in 1993-4, I thought such arguments were plausible. However, biologists no longer recognize the sub-species canis lupis irremotus as separate from other gray wolves in North America. Examples of many long range dispersions of both reintroduced and native Montana and British Columbia/Alberta wolves convinced me that there was no basis in wolf behavior for a genetically unique sub-species of wolf to form in the Greater Yellowstone area. During the last several centuries, before wolves were faced with extermination, there were tens of thousands of wolves in the Rocky Mountains and adjacent areas. The formation of packs and the dispersion of thousands of wolves seeking new packs, must have regularly stirred up the gene pool, preventing the formation of a sub-species in the Yellowstone area.
Of course, the existence of local wolves would put wind in the sails of the Farm Bureau, not legally at this point, but politically. The nice thing about these "native" wolves from the standpoint of those who don't like wolves was that they were not heard, seen, and did not kill livestock (at least until the last several years).
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