Yellowstone wolf locations Nov. - early Dec. 1999

11-24-99 updated 11-29, 11-30, 12-1, 12-2, and 12-6

I haven't done a Yellowstone wolf update for a while. Instead, there have been stories about individual packs and incidents.  The following is somewhat incomplete.  The information came from the Yellowstone wolf team and published reports from the U.S. Fish  and Wildlife Service. Those wolves reported missing are radio-collared wolves. Undoubtedly there are other non-collared wolves that have dispersed as well. The biggest story is that the Nez Perce Pack was located in Idaho on the Henry's Fork.

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Crystal Creek Pack  - Observed 11-23 on a kill in the Pelican Valley -- their normal territory. Wolf 120F was not located. It was reported on 12-1,  that they have killed wolf 123F who recently dispersed from the Soda Butte Pack.  Last Saturday they had a big fight with the Druids and drove the Druids off of Specimen Ridge (see separate story).

Leopold Pack - Observed on 11-23 heading up Fawn Creek in the Gallatin Range.  This is a bit west of what has been their normal territory the last three years.

Druid Peak Pack - The big yearling, number 163M was missing, but he has been located. He is traveling with an noncollared gray wolf, east of Yellowstone Park. This may well become the nucleus of a new pack in the general vicinity of Cooke City or Sunlight Basin.   The Druid Peak pack of nine presently consists of alpha pair 21M and 40F, plus 42F, 103F, 105F, 106F and three pups that survived the summer. Two of the pups are gray and one is black. Their sex is not known.  The pack has been frequently moving up and down the Lamar Valley area, from Round Prairie in Soda Butte Creek on the east to Slough Creek (Rose Creek territory) on the west.  They have also been on top of Specimen Ridge a lot.  A couple days ago the Crystal Creek pack suddenly made an incursion from the south to the top Specimen Ridge. They unexpectedly met the Druids up there, and sent the Druids running after a big fight.  It is not known if any of the Druids were injured or killed.

I have been getting daily reports on the Druid Peak Pack.  No. 21M and 40F are still clearly the alpha pair, with 106F being perhaps the lowest in the pack hierarchy. She often leaves the pack for a while and explores on her own. In the last two weeks, the Druids have made several incursions into Rose Creek Pack territory.   There is currently a disperser from the Chief Joseph Pack in Druid Territory, no. 147M. Because the Druids have always been disproportionately female, perhaps he is seeking a mate. 

Rose Creek Pack - The bulk of the pack was in Elk Tongue Creek on 11-23 (normal range). Number 9F, number 77F and an unknown black wolf were seen in Slough Creek.  Silver-colored No. 9 appears to be well fed, but her behavior shows she has clearly become a subordinate wolf.  12-6-99. The US Fish and Wildlife Service Reports that no. 9 has left Yellowstone and has migrated east of the Park into the general vicinity of the Sunlight Basin Pack where as many as three new pairs of wolves may have formed.  I do not know if she is in one of these pairs.

Number 78F's (pack?) - This was not exactly located.   It may have been near Cook Peak (normal territory for the Leopold Pack). Is this why Leopold has moved west?

Chief Joseph Pack - They were at Black Butte in the NW corner of the Park. This is the center of their territory. Wolves 115F and and 147M were missing (these two wolves were born in 1997 -- dispersed?).

Sheep Mountain Pack- There are two radio-collared wolves in this pack. This is the pack that recently was subject to vigorous control activity.  The radio-collared alpha female 16F was located on Timber Mountain with 5 other black wolves and two gray wolves on Nov. 23.  The other radio-collared wolf in the pack, 164M, was on Dome Mountain, probably alone.  This is their usual range.  There was a report that a number of the wolves in this pack had gone far south into Yellowstone into the territory of the Nez Perce Pack.  If so, they seem to have returned.

Soda Butte Pack - No information, although the two members of the pack that dispersed northward apparently have not returned, nor were they located on today's flight.  The 2 former pack members not located are 123M and 124M. 11-29-99. The two radio collared members of the remaining pack, alpha female no. 14F and no. 44F were located in the Thorofare country of SE Yellowstone/Teton Wilderness. No. 104M was not located.  Added on 12-1-99. Wolf 123M, who recently dispersed from Soda Butte has been killed by the Crystal Creek Pack. Yellowstone is getting pretty full of wolves, and I wouldn't be surprised if the wolf population in Yellowstone National Park (not the entire greater Yellowstone ecosystem) is nearing its peak.

Nez Perce Pack - The Nez Perce pack has left Yellowstone and was located on the Henry's Fork of the Snake River, presumably in Island Park on the Targhee National Forest.  I believe this is the first time an entire pack of wolves from Yellowstone has moved into Idaho. 11-29-99. The pack appears to have moved into Montana, a few miles from Henry's Lake (which is just inside Idaho).   11-30-99. They were in Montana just south of Hebgan Lake.

Gros Ventre Pack - About a week-and-a-half ago, they were visually spotted on a large mountain meadow up in the Gros Ventre Mountains east of Jackson Hole. Five wolves were seen, indicating probably that two of ? pups-of-the-year have survived. There are three adults in the pack. Folks may recall last winter they were dubbed "The Jackson Trio." If they had not been renamed, I guess they would be the "Jackson Five"  ;-)  12-6-99. The pack has moved to near a Wyoming Game and Fish elk feedground on the Gros Ventre River upstream from Grand Teton National Park.  Elk are finally beginning to come into the winter range after the dry and record warm autumn.

Teton Pack- Number 24F and her five pups have returned to Grand Teton National Park and were last located in the northern part of the Park.

Sunlight Pack - no report.

Washakie II Pack- no report, although it appears the Diamond G has not been able to shoot any of them. The lethal take permit to that ranch was renewed when no. 24F and her pups left the area.

Progress toward recovery-

With the mortalities of the summer and uncertainties about other groups of wolves, it is not clear that the Yellowstone wolf recovery area has ten breeding wolf packs. If not, year number one for a recovered wolf population in the area has still not been attained. Because of the uncertain status of number 78F and her pups and also of the reconstituted Washakie Pack, I think a good argument could be made, however, that there are really eleven wolf packs. If 24F (Teton Pack) gets a new mate, and if 14F (Soda Butte Pack) mates successfully with 104M, there could easily be 13 packs next year, and probably more.

Have the wolf killed all the elk?

There is a group that has formed in Park Country, Montana that claims the wolves are driving the Yellowstone northern range elk herd to extinction.  It was not a good hunting season north of the Park, and no doubt anti-wolf organizers were ready to use this as a pretext.  Eerie weather is responsible for the poor hunt. There is absolutely no snow, and the elk are much higher than usual and widely dispersed.

This new movement is especially odd in view of the fact that for years critics in Montana have said elk are overruling the northern range, overgrazing it and destroying it.  Dr. Charles Kay of Utah State University in particular has been a proponent of this view.  As recently as the winter of 1996-7 when thousands of elk perished in the severe winter, anti-national park forces like the Farm Bureau were claiming the Park
Service had allowed wildlife to overgraze Yellowstone and that was the reason for the die back, not the lack of winter range.

I have been thinking about some of the psychological functions of disliking wolves.  One is scapegoating. "I didn't get my elk because predators ate them all."  I couldn't be because the hunter was unable to adapt   hunting technique to changing conditions.

In direct contradiction to the views of this Montana group, Wyoming Governor Jim Geringer recently extended the elk hunt in Wyoming, including Wyoming wolf country, until Dec. 12 because he felt that elk harvest had been too low due to warm weather.  He feared elk populations would otherwise be too large.