The wolf pack that left Yellowstone, moved a hundred miles west to near Dillon, Montana, was captured and returned to the Park only to escape prematurely from its holding pen. While it was hoped the pack would settle in the middle of Yellowstone's Hayden Valley. The six wolves have instead left the Park. They appear to be on the way back to where they got into trouble before. The pack has one strike against it for killing livestock. If it kills again, the pack (which has no official name) will probably be exterminated. Number 27F was shot at the time of recapture because it was thought that she led the pack out of Yellowstone, and she had killed sheep in the summer of 1996. This subsequent dispersal casts doubt on that hypothesis.
In good news, number 16F has been rediscovered with at least two of her pups. She had not been located for several weeks, and she was known to be injured. She was back near her 1997 den site in Daly Creek in the northwest corner of the Park.
Number 33F and 34M are still together. There was no visual sighting, so it is not known if the late no. 17 and 34's pups were with the adult pair. They were located on the east side of the Gallatin Range near Swan Lake Flat.
The Leopold Pack remains mostly on the Blacktail Deer Plateau, but has been ranging a little farther to the west.
The Druid Peak Pack remains in Soda Butte Creek and the Lamar Valley and has been highly visible to observers from the road. See my reports for some details.
The Rose Creek Pack has moved off the Buffalo Plateau and has been seen in Slough Creek, the Lamar Valley, Specimen Ridge, and was located most recently in Antelope Creek -- the drainage on the northeast side of Mt. Washburn. It will be interesting to see how many pups survived the summer and if this large pack (21? wolves) coheres.
The Crystal Creek Pack remains in the Pelican Valley. The Soda Butte Pack remains near Heart Lake. The Washakie Pack remains near the Ramshorn at the south boundary of the Washakie Wilderness, 20 or so miles north of Dubois, Wyoming.
There are a number of unaccounted, uncollared wolves. I have received persistent reports of wolves in the Gros Ventre River drainage just to the NE of Jackson, Wyoming. I have had a somewhat credible report of two wolves in the southeast Idaho highlands and of one wolf in the Centennial Mountains on the Idaho/Montana border. This latter is probably the Idaho wolf B3 -- Akiata.