Former Druid Pack Wolf 104 appears to be alpha of the Crystal Creek Pack
Thorofare yearling leaves the Dunoir
10-3-98
Email addresses for members of Congress, the media, and other officials.Latest news from Yellowstone indicates that bold wolf 104M has indeed become the alpha male of the Crystal Creek Pack. No. 104 is just 1 1/2 years old, but his behavior indicates that he is now leader of the pack along with venerable female 5F. Recent observations of the pack have led Yellowstone wolf team leader Doug Smith to the tentative conclusion that 104 now leads.
The 15-member pack was observed as usual in the remote Pelican Valley. The pack was spread out. This indicates to me that there is the possibility that some pack members will disperse. The same scattered pattern was observed with the Druid Peak Pack and the Rose Creek Pack in the most recent tracking flight and observations.
The Druids were in pairs, or alone all over the Lamar Valley. Meanwhile Smith observed 17 of the Rose Creek Pack spread out along Buffalo Fork Creek and Rose Creek 1/1/2-year old no. 82M and several other Rose Creek wolves in Slough Creek.
The Leopold Pack had moved onto the Sheepeater Cliffs right above Mammoth Hot Springs.
Chief Joseph Pack was still in the heights of the Gallatin Range near Fawn Pass.
The Nez Perce Pack has entered the southwest corner of the Park (though just barely). There were radio-tracked in the timber near Shoshone Lake. I learned that no pups have been visually sighted with this pack since the wolves moved the late 67F's pups from the Nez Perce pen to what was assumed to be the den area of the alpha female 48F. However, the pack has been in timber most of the summer. Visual sightings by the wolf team have been few.
The movement to Shoshone Lake is interesting because the Yellowstone wolves have left the SW corner of Yellowstone virtually unexplored.
The Soda Butte Pack has number 24F back amongst them. In my last report she was about eight miles to the south and seemed to be dispersing. Still, I doubt she will stay with the pack much longer due to her age and the increasing abundance of single male wolves in the vicinity. The Soda Butte Pack was located near Langford Cairn and one of the two radio-collared Washakie yearling males, 133M, was located nearby in Columbine Creek. These places are near the east side of Yellowstone Lake, a somewhat new location for the pack.
The Thorofare yearling 109F who had unexpectedly moved into the Dunoir, has left the area. She was located through radio tracking miles to west, in Enos Creek in the Teton Wilderness. It is not known if wolves have left the Dunoir altogether, and it is not known if 109 is alone, with her uncollared brothers and sisters, or with other wolves.
Bonneville Pass, wildlife gateway for wolves, bears, moose and
elk into the Dunoir. Copyright © Ralph Maughan.The Sunlight Pair no. 41F and 52M were located near Crandall, the general location of three wolf shootings in the last year, two of which are unsolved today -- 31M and 38M of the Druid Peak Pack.
No. 16F and her pups ("Chief Joseph II") were not located, and I understand that a search for her is a priority for the next flight.
Comment: it appears to me that a lot of wolves are on the edge of dispersal, and many of the dispersers will be uncollared. In a few months there will be a number of new wolf pairs, ready to have pups next spring.
If my wishes are granted, I'd hope for wolves in Jackson Hole and eastern Idaho. For the good folks down in Colorado, I'd hope for some dispersers off the Wind Rivers and over the Red Desert to that Colorado high country.
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