Yellowstone Wolf Update:
Crystal Creek alpha male dead in natural mortality

(9-1-98)

Wolf number 6M killed by an elk or a bear-
Last week the Yellowstone wolf team received a mortality signal on wolf 6M, the alpha male of the Crystal Creek Pack, and the largest wolf in Yellowstone Park. His carcass was recovered near his kill of a bull elk in the Pelican Valley. The big wolf had puncture wounds (such as by an elk antler) but also slashes as by a grizzly bear. The exact cause of this natural mortality has not been determined. Kerry Murphy of the wolf team, who retrieved the carcass, said none of these injuries appeared to be the obvious cause of the fatality. The Ashland, Oregon laboratory is presently doing the necropsy.

When captured for radio-collaring last winter, no. 6, who came to Yellowstone as a 70 pound pup, weighed in at 141 pounds! His mother and mate, no. 5F, remains the alpha female of the pack. The pack has grown greatly in size since it was reduced to just two wolves -- no. 5 and 6 -- and driven from the Lamar Valley by the Druid Peak Pack. That was back in the summer of 1996. With the death of no. 6, the Crystal Creek Pack still has 15 members. Eight of them are pups born this year.

Other Park Wolf News-
Skull of alpha female of Thorofare pack recovered by Doug Smith-

The skull of no. 30F, the former alpha female of the Thorofare pack and also that of her pup no. 127, have finally been recovered by Yellowstone Wolf Team Leader, Doug Smith. She and her pup were killed in an avalanche last winter near Eagle Pass on the SE boundary of Yellowstone Park. The dead pair were found in an avalanche chute. Number 127 was known to have disappeared, but earlier speculation was that it (sex unknown) was killed along with its father, no. 35M, by the Soda Butte Pack. The exact order of events may never be known, but it is possible that no. 30 and 127 were killed before the big alpha male was dismembered by the Soda Butte Pack. Since the death of the pup and the alpha pair, the Thorofare pack has consisted of the surviving yearlings: 128M, 129F, 130?, 131?, 137?. They are presently located relatively near the Soda Butte Pack and also near the surviving Washakie Pack yearlings in the remote Thorofare region of Yellowstone's SE corner country. Original story on the death of 30F and 35M.

The Druids return to the Lamar-

As I mentioned in my last report the Druid Peak Pack has returned to Lamar Valley. They have been observed in the general area they occupied last spring since the latter part of August.  I understand that on August 26  wolf watchers were also treated to a fine display of the Northern Lights as night fell.

Sawtooth female no. 67F shot by Wildlife Services-

It is now officially confirmed that no. 67F, mother of four pups in the Nez Perce enclosure this spring was recently shot by Wildlife Services (ADC) in the Red Rock Valley area of Montana, west of the Park after she chased cattle there. It was her third strike. I hope her four pups are well and with the Nez Perce Pack. 

I speculate that her pups may have been taken from her and she may have been driven off by the Nez Perce's alpha female, no. 48F. The pack was most recently tracked near Beach Lake on the Park's Central Plateau. Heavy timber has obscured visual observations. The pack consists of no. 48F, her mate no. 29M; 70M; and 72M (the two known survivors of the ten orphaned Sawtooth pups brought to Yellowstone in 1996), 92M (no. 29's son from 1997and whelped by his late mother no. 37F), and an unknown number of pups (or perhaps no pups at all).

Number 16F and pups move into Bear Creek.

Single mother no. 16, originally from the Rose Creek Pack, and presumably her six pups, have moved out of the headwaters of Cedar Creek and southward toward Yellowstone Park. She was tracked in the North Fork of Bear Creek a few miles above the small mining town of Jardine, Montana. This in the mountains near Gardiner.

 

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