Running Creek Pair kills 2 pups
The effort to save the Boulder Pack pups via their adoption by Idaho wolves B7M and B11F has failed. Instead, the pair killed two of the three pups when they were put inside the enclosure at Running Creek, deep in the Selway/Bitterroot Wilderness.

This is the first instance of adult wolves killing pups put in an enclosure.  In 1996-7, the ten Sawtooth pups were successfully put in the Rose Creek pen in Yellowstone with two unrelated adult wolves.

The ill-fated Boulder pups had been captured from their pack in an effort to wean them from the pack's tendency to sometimes kill cattle near Deer Lodge, Montana. Nos. 7 and 11 apparently killed two of the pups as they fed on a deer carcass placed in the Running Creek pen.

Running Creek Pair set free in northern Idaho
As a result, no. 7 and 11 have finally been set free, but not at Running Creek. Instead they were transported to northern Idaho and released on the North Fork of the Clearwater River. The elaborate effort in penning 7 and 11 and shuttling them about is an attempt to confuse their sense of geography so that they won't return to the Big Hole Valley of SW Montana where they got into trouble in the summer and fall of 1996 after killing a cow or two. B11 had been captured late in 1996 and released at Fish Lake on the northern Idaho/Montana border, but she soon found her way back to the Big Hole.  This spring, B7 escaped from the Running Creek pen and, he too, made his way back to the Big Hole.

Two of the Boulder Pack killed yesterday by the ADC near Deer Lodge, Montana
Meanwhile, ADC agents used a helicopter to shoot two more of the Boulder Pack. On August 6 agents successfully gunned down the pack's alpha male and a yearling female. These two and alpha female were reported as in the act of stalking cattle near Deer Lodge.

Another pup captured as alpha female and two pups esc ape
The same operation netted (literally) one more pup. This pup will be put in the Running Creek pen with its surviving litter mate. The alpha female and two additional pups escaped the ADC operation.  Efforts to kill her have been called off for the time being. An ADC spokesperson said that she will be watched to see if she can refrain from livestock killing. A hypothesis was stated that it was the alpha male that had been the wolf to initiate most, if not all, of the previous attacks on livestock.

Note: to understand this article folks should read my articles dated 7-15 and 7-21. Folks might want to look at the 1996 reports for more on the long history of wolf B11F (aka "Blackfire").