Wolf Tales

Wisps of smoke wreathed Druid Peak our last morning in Yellowstone, as lightening-sparked fires smoldered in the underbrush. Later, we would drive through smoke so heavy it blocked Yellowstone Lake and limited our vision to 30 feet. It would later close the only road through the park as a dozen fires in both Yellowstone and the Grand Tetons, a month old, reignited in the north wind.
But for the moment, our attention was on the valley floor, peering through Doug McLaughlan's powerful spotting scope. Fly fishermen dotted the river, taking cutthroat trout from the shrunken river that concentrates fish in the autumn. But while the season is a good one for fishing, it's a difficult time for wolves, with prey elk made strong by ample summer feeding.
It’s difficult to believe we may be seeing the end of the famed Druid pack, as we watch for wolves in the sage far below us. A huge bull elk crests a distant ridge and a pronghorn ram snorts a warning behind us, but it's an otherwise quiet morning.
Doug has seen wolves still alive with mange in the snows of March, but we can’t imagine how animals could endure 40 below zero temperatures missing much of their fur. If all three pups fail to survive, the pack could disperse, with no new successors to carry the pack into the future. The Druids, viewed by thousands and the subject of many articles, a book and a PBS film, could vanish as have other packs before them.
We’ll find out next spring, when we’re certain to see the wolf regulars, who are a pack unto themselves. Dubbed elitist by some park visitors, they can identify individual wolves from two miles away with their expensive Swarovski scopes. Several have purchased more than one tracking collar, at a cost of $2,500 each. The serious researchers have radios to communicate with Rick McIntyre, who tracks collared wolves with an antenna. His vehicle parked at a pullout is a magnet to the regulars. We’ve learned their code names for the best viewing spots: Footbridge, Hitching Post, Dorothy’s, Fisherman’s – code names wolf watchers use to communicate among themselves while keeping interlopers or those who would cause harm oblivious to the wolves’ location. It sounds rather cloak-and-dagger, but the hatred of wolves by many locals is palpable.
Wolf watchers convinced the park service to bar for two years a professional photographer who violated the 100-yard distance law, particularly after he climbed the peak, intending to photograph the newborn pups in their den. Another park visitor was fined after tossing hotdog buns to wolves when a wolf watcher photographed his license plate.
Wolf people are serious types, but we’ve found them unfailingly friendly and incredibly dedicated.
Of all the wolves observed since the reintroduction of wolves to Yellowstone in 1995, one of the best known male wolves is #302, now alpha male of the new Blacktail pack. Dubbed “Casanova,” the male would leave his birth pack, the Leopolds, and travel many miles to court females in the Druid pack under cover of darkness, always returning to his pack at dawn. Ultimately he joined the Druids, helping the pack gain its dominance and becoming its beta male.
Doug also spoke about Big Black, who broke from the Druid pack and took several strong yearlings with him to form the Slough Creek pack several years ago. The year of 2008 was a tough one for Yellowstone wolves, with only 12 pups surviving in the entire park. Turf wars are common when packs compete for limited resources, and 302 moved on the nearby Slough Creek pack, killing several of its members, although Big Black escaped. Emboldened, the sisters of the Slough alpha female, who’d constantly pinned, subjugated and tormented her sisters, killed their cruel sibling.
Amidst the chaos and decimation of the Slough pack, a female fled to the Druids for protection and was accepted. She was carrying Big Black’s pups and this spring the highly unusual occurred in the Druid pack: the birth of pups that had been sired by two different fathers.
“Big Black’s instinct to feed his pups probably cost him his life,” said Doug, who told us the male wolf was seen approaching the den of his former pack this Father’s Day with food for the pups he had sired. He was seen several more times bringing food to his offspring, but rival males are not tolerated and Big Black probably tried the Druids’ patience too many times. He was never seen again.
Clan rivalries, vengeance, parental devotion, murder – a wolf pack has it all.
On this last morning in Lamar Valley, I finally got to see a Druid pup, the lone surviving black pup from this spring’s litter. We watched him for at least a half-hour through Doug’s powerful telescope, as he froze, then pounced, attempting to find a meal of a mouse or vole in the dry grass and sage.
It appeared there were no adults in the area to feed him. His tail was completely denuded of fur due to mange and he scratched his side in obvious discomfort for long periods of time. At last he took off and headed east, trotting out of sight. Doug told us that black pup is the largest and most vigorous of the three remaining Druid pups and the one who has the best chance of making it through the winter. He believes the pup is the son of Big Black.
Pictures at:
https://picasaweb.google.com/happytwo.mcwilliams/FireInTetonsSept2009?authkey=Gv1sRgCNnusaKVhvHJXg&feat=directlink