Valley of the Wolves

“There’s 569 on the ridge below tree line near the kill.”
A murmur spread among the crowd as spotting scopes and binoculars turned in unison toward the hill in Yellowstone’s Lamar Valley. Bundled against the cold of dawn were the wolf watchers and their groupies – ourselves included. We were watching the alpha female of the famed Druid Peak pack, the largest and perhaps best known of Yellowstone wolf packs.
Members of the roughly 14-member pack, through tag-team and ambush efforts, had killed a bull elk the night before, dropping the large animal at the edge of the Lamar River below us. Hours later, all that remained were pink-tinged ribs and a large rack of antlers still bearing springtime velvet.
The den’s pack was located high up on the hill across the road and the adults had fed on the carcass and delivered food to an unknown number of new pups.
The human watchers included two park rangers, volunteers with the Wolf Project, longtime groupies and first-timers such as ourselves, thrilled to be part of it. The volunteers came from far and wide, many visiting the park several times a year for decades. They knew each other by name and the wolves by number. All had expensive spotting scopes – the $3,000 Swarovski was a favorite – and others had cameras with 600mm lenses. Some scribbled notes and Rick McIntyre, the chief wolf researcher, taped his field notes. This was serious business. We were equipped with Terry’s 40-year-old binoculars and my point-and-shoot Canon. Happily, people were generous in sharing their scopes.
“Did 480 participate in the hunt? Has anyone seen 302?” At seven years of age, alpha male 480 was advanced in age. Most wolves live only to five years, and in recent years as many as a third of the Yellowstone’s northeastern wolf population has been lost, the pups to canine distemper and Parvo virus, and the adults to a variety of causes, including hunters. Wyoming classifies wolves as predators to be shot on sight once they stray from the park boundaries.
At the lookout, we were spellbound, watching 569 cross the road to feed the pups and a black male yearling, as yet unnumbered, approach the kill, chasing away both a coyote and ravens who had settled in for a meal. He tugged mightily on the carcass for 15 minutes and came away with a chicken-sized hunk of meat which he carried some distance and then cached in the sagebrush. A gray female appeared and was identified as 645, having lost her radio collar. Wolves are tracked by plane and darted in the winter, when blood samples are drawn and adults collared.
Once plentiful here but exterminated by the 1920s, wolves were reintroduced to Yellowstone in 1995 amid tremendous controversy and opposition by local ranchers. Their fears of predation on livestock have been unfounded and the wolves have returned an ecological balance to the area. All the wildlife is spectacular, but everyone hopes for a glimpse of a wolf.
They’ve brought a great deal of tourist income to the area, but the same guy in town who sells you a wolf sweatshirt could have been the one who chased a wolf for 60 miles on a snowmobile last winter just to kill it. A longtime visitor recounted that some wolf haters have even scattered poisoned hot dogs around the park, killing more than one vacationer’s pet dog.
The animals were taken off the endangered species list last year in Montana, Idaho and Wyoming, but Wyoming’s “predator” classification and “kill on sight” law for wolves outside the park have outraged conservationists, causing some wolf watchers to boycott the state. Obama supporters have been dismayed that he has upheld the previous administration's position.
Meanwhile, the packs go about the business of survival. There are new mouths to feed this time of year, with pups yet unseen by human eyes up in the hidden den. Researchers say that wolves dote on pups and the entire pack – male and female, related or not – plays a role in feeding, guarding and playing with the pack’s youngest members. We watched a young black wolf trot back and forth along the tumultuous river seeking a safe crossing point. Finally, he plunged and we held our collective breath as he was swept downstream before reaching the other side, determined to deliver meat to the den high on the wooded hillside. Bonds within the pack are as strong as the fascination observers have for the animals.
We remained for nearly five hours in the bone-chilling cold, watching as 645 left the carcass and moved up the hill, stopping to sit and throw back her head.
“Shhhhhhh! The wolf’s howling.” Instantly, nearly 70 humans fell silent and we heard the eerie, melancholy song of the wolf. It was an extraordinary beginning to our stay in the Lamar Valley.
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