Brief Yellowstone Wolf Update Late March 2000
No. 9 not the alpha female in Valentine Pack?

3-30-2000, additions 4-4, and 4-14

Here is a brief Yellowstone wolf update.

Rose Creek Pack.  Most of the pack has been in the Hellroaring Creek area near the Yellowstone River.  This is where they spent most of the winter.  It is downhill and a couple miles from the road, not real easy to get to (and this time of the year the area is thick with just emerged grizzly bears).  You can often sight the bears and the wolves by scope from the small overlooks on the road about 2 to 4 miles west of Tower Junction. Rose Creek adult 77F was spotted yesterday near the Pack's traditional den site.

Druid Peak Pack.  The Druids have been the Lamar Valley.

Crystal Creek Pack  The pack is in its usual location -- the Pelican Valley.  Five wolves were spotted by air yesterday on a bison kill.  This pack is the sole Park pack that regularly kills bison. Formerly very large pack, since last Fall Crystal Creek has declined to just five wolves due to dispersals and perhaps death of a few of the uncollared members of the pack. 

Leopold Pack - Yesterday the Leopold Pack was spotted near their traditional den site on the Blacktail Deer Plateau.

Chief Joseph- Six members of the pack were counted near Black Butte in the NW corner of the Park. This is the core of their territory and has been for 3 years now.

Soda Butte Pack - The Soda Butte Pack was not located yesterday, but they have been regularly located in past weeks near the Yellowstone River delta (remote SE Yellowstone).  The reconfigured Soda Butte pack seems to have settled down to 7 or 8 members including both 120M (formerly of Crystal Creek) and 104M (formerly of Druid Peak and latter Crystal Creek).  It will be interesting to see which is the new alpha male.  It is assumed that the original alpha female from 1995, no. 14F, is still the alpha female.

Nez Perce Pack - The Nez Perce Pack was in Sentinel Creek near the geyser basin and near an elk kill, which it seems a grizzly had stolen from them.

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I gathered information on wolves NW of Yellowstone on April 3 and 14.

• There is a pair (115F and an uncollared wolf) that seem to have localized in the Taylor Fork of Gallatin just NW of Yellowstone (probable den).  No. 115 is formerly of the Chief Joseph Pack.
• There is another pair (55M from the Leopold Pack) and an uncollared wolf) near Big Sky (actually north of Big Sky Resort close to Ted Turner's ranch). Needless to say a wolf pack on Turner's 125,000 acre Flying D Ranch will be welcomed.
• There are persistent reports of wolves near the Wall Creek Wildlife management area south of Ennis in the foothills of the Gravely Range.
• The Madison Range area along the NW boundary of Yellowstone and further north no longer has any livestock of note, and harbors perhaps 10,000 elk. This could be a real expansion area for Yellowstone wolves.  The Turner Ranch has been developed into a wildlife area that rivals the Lamar Valley.

And south of Yellowstone near Jackson Hole, the Gros Ventre Pack severely injured a small livestock herding dog.  The will survive. 

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April 4 and 14, 2000. Valentine Pack- It was reported today that no. 9 does not appear to be the dominant female in the new Valentine Pack, NE of Yellowstone. Recent observations of the new pack, based on wolf body language, indicate that no. 153F (9's daughter) appears dominant.  Whether one or both females in the pack are pregnant should soon be known because denning time is about to arrive. Not all biologists agree that no. 9 has been displaced.

The Valentine Pack is in the southeastern corner of Sunlight Basin area east of Yellowstone.  The Sunlight Pack, which originated last spring from a female from the Druid Peak Pack and a male from the Rose Creek Pack inhabits the area between upper Sunlight Basin, outside the Park, and the headwaters of the Lamar River just inside the eastern boundary of Yellowstone.