Agates romp and more. Yellowstone wolf update by Kathie Lynch.

Kathie Lynch has a detailed new update of the activities of Yellowstone wolves on the northern range of the Park. Thanks Kathy!

By Kathie Lynch ©

Nine days of wolf watching in Yellowstone (Feb. 17-25, 2007) brought the reward of seeing wolves from six packs (Druid Peak, Slough Creek, Agate Creek, Oxbow Creek, Hellroaring, and Leopold). I had one three pack day, one three dog day (wolves, coyotes and fox) and saw wolves on eight of the nine days. Unfortunately, I arrived one day too late to witness the spectacle of seeing five (!) cougars, including a mother and three spotted kittens, which were visible from Hellroaring overlook.

The day I arrived was the day that Druid 302M crossed the road with his badly injured rear leg. His health and whereabouts were the focus of much interest throughout the rest of the week. When he was seen again five days later, he was able to move at a run, although the extent of his injuries could not be observed. He stayed near a carcass in the vicinity of the rest of the Druid Peak pack for several days, but we weren’t sure whether or not he actually rejoined the pack.

The Druids now number 11, including alpha 480M, alpha 569F, 302M and eight pups (four black and four gray, soon to be yearlings). Anyone who has followed 302M’s exploits over the years knows that he’s a lover, not a fighter, and can probably guess that he may have been out looking for females when he was injured. His mate from last year, 569F, is now the mate of 480M. She moved up in rank to alpha following the disappearance of last year’s alpha, 529F. Hopefully 569F will produce another litter of grandpuppies of legendary Druid 21M to carry on his legacy!

The Sloughs continue to be elusive. I saw them in Little America and at Slough Creek, but they often disappear for two to three days when pressured by the Druids from the east or the Agates from the west. The Sloughs usually have a count of eight (six black and two gray, all adults), including the seven Slough females and their new alpha male, the uncollared gray Agate yearling (soon to be two years old). He undoubtedly had a big job keeping suitors away from his seven females during the breeding season!

The beautiful uncollared dark gray male unidentified interloper who had waltzed right in and temporarily joined the Sloughs in January, has disappeared again. He may have been from the Hellroaring pack and returned to them now that breeding season is over.

The Sloughs have been living up to their distinction as one of the few packs in Yellowstone which knows how to kill bison. We had a really good look at them one day when they tried to return to a bison carcass at Slough Creek but were scared off by two snowshoers. Almost effortlessly, they ran right up to the very tip top of the steep and rocky hillside just east of the campground road. One after another they stood silhouetted against the sky on the very highest rock, playing king of the mountain!

The new Slough alpha male’s little Agate brother, the black pup 590M, who had also joined the Sloughs briefly, has also returned from whence he came. On Feb. 24, he was back with the Agates and getting a royal sniff over inspection from his natal pack on the north side of the Yellowstone River across from Wrecker pullout.
We had a magical close encounter that afternoon at Wrecker when a beautifully colored light black with dark black points Agate pup appeared on our side of the river only 40 yards away! He/she was probably on the way to a month old bison carcass nearby (which was still being protectively guarded by a group of six bison—amazing animals!). We first noticed the wolf when a very scared coyote saw it first and shot past us like a rocket. The wolf pup wasted no time in retreating as soon as it saw humans and melted away into the trees before we could even get a photo. Other than wolves I’ve seen along the road, this was the closest I’ve ever been to a wolf in the wild!

Agate 113M is still suffering from his now almost two month old injuries. His left rear leg looks skinned and dark red inside from top to bottom, a mysterious new dark spot has recently appeared on his forehead between his ears, and he shakes his head a lot. Most of the time he seems to be managing alright, but he is definitely not fully recovered. If we knew the true extent of his injuries, we would probably be even more amazed at what an old trooper he is. As one of the two oldest wolves in the Park (and perhaps now the oldest if the Mollie’s alpha male, 193M, has not survived his bout with mange), everyone is pulling for 113M. He will be 10 years old in April, and I think that Doug Smith once told me that the oldest wolf he knows of in Yellowstone lived to be ten-and-a-half.

The Agates continue to range far and wide. I had a surprise one morning when I set up my scope on Dave’s Hill and started counting wolves near a carcass out on the Slough Creek flats below. The day before, the Sloughs had been on that carcass. But, when my count got to four grays (and knowing that the Sloughs usually only have two), I started wondering, “Who are those guys?” It finally dawned on me that I wasn’t looking at the Sloughs at all, but at the Agates making themselves right at home at Slough Creek!

Many are hoping that the Sloughs will den again in plain sight at Slough Creek. But, after the disasterous siege last April by the Unknown group and the way the Sloughs keep getting run out of their own territory by the visiting Agates, I actually hope they won’t den there. However, with eight adult wolves and no playful pups to slow them down, the Sloughs just may turn out to be the mighty force they used to be.

Led by pack founder alpha 536F, the Oxbow Creek pack of 11 wolves (four adults and seven pups) is often visible from Hellroaring (or, for those of you who know how cold that spot is, I call it “Hellfreezingover”!) The Oxbows are sometimes directly below Hellroaring overlook and sometimes range east or west. I enjoyed a little bit of satisfaction one day when I followed bird activity through my scope and discovered a carcass upon which they were feeding. On another day, we heard howling and looked down from Hellroaring to discover two grays chasing each other. They soon ran out of sight, but it may have been the uncollared gray Oxbow alpha male chasing an intruder, perhaps the uncollared dark gray Hellroaring male.

Seeing two of the four or five Hellroaring pack wolves lying on a very distant rock and six bedded Leopold wolf specks literally miles away completed my week’s wolf watching. The Leopolds are always so far away on the Blacktail Plateau, I have to be pretty desperate to even look for them! With perhaps as many as 17 to 19 wolves in the Leopold pack, though, there’s always a chance they’ll save the wolf watching day. They did just that recently to keep intact the record of someone in Yellowstone having seen a wolf every day for over six years, since Feb. 8, 2001!

We must all thank our lucky stars that, 12 years after their reintroduction, the Yellowstone wolves have been such great ambassadors for wolves the world over. Seen by literally hundreds of thousands of park visitors, they have shared their lives with us and made an incredible contribution to knowledge about and tolerance for wolves in the wild. As the gray wolf now faces the challenges of delisting, it is up to us to continue to spread their message and work to protect wolves everywhere so that they may live wild and free for all time.

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