After 2 years of trying, the Chief Joseph Pack of NW Yellowstone finally has a radio collar. The alpha pair of the pack, 34M and 33F, were both killed in 2001 -- 33F on US 191 and 34M injured by a bull elk and finished off by the Cougar Creek pack. Several other pack members had radio collars, but they dispersed. Since 2001 the pack has denned twice in YNP and had 2 litters of pups, but many attempts to collar them failed. Present size of the pack has been estimated at about 14 wolves, including 5 pups.Finally on Sept. 9, Mike Ross of Montana's Department of Fish, Wildlife, and Parks caught the 80lb. alpha female of the Chief Joe pack in a trap in Tom Miner Basin north of Yellowstone Park. Ross had been working with Val Asher of the Turner Endangered Species Fund.
The alpha female's number will be 327F. She is still in Tom Miner Basin, a favorite area of the pack, but a problematic one because of the concentration of livestock, but also of elk. By road the pack's Park home in the Daly Creek area is over a hundred miles from Tom Miner Basin, but for a wolf or a person on foot Daly Creek is only about 3 miles from the head of Tom Miner Creek and 10 miles from Tom Miner Basin.
The week Chief Joe got a radio collar, they also killed a calf, and on the 17th they fed on a calf that was dead of other causes.
If wolf managers go into control mode on Chief Joe, there may be controversy because attempts to trap them inside the Park in Daly Creek might have pushed them over the top of the Gallatin Range into Tom Miner.
This was in the Service's gray wolf progress report on Sept. 5 "Chief Joe pack was apparently bumped out of Daly Creek [YNP] on the 1st, by our 1 night trapping effort. On the morning of the 2nd seven wolves were reportedly seen chasing cattle on private land in Tom Miner Basin which is just over the ridge from Daly Creek. That afternoon a calf was confirmed killed by wolves and another calf is missing. Trapping to collar and release on site is being conducted. At least 14 have been seen including 5 pups."
Tom Miner Basin with the crest of the Gallatin Range in
the background. Dec. 24, 2002. Copyright Ralph Maughan
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