CHAPTER 4
Getting a handle on why wolves do what they do has never been an easy proposition. Not only are there tremendous differences in both individual and pack personalities, but each displays a surprising range of behaviors depending on what’s going on around them at any given time. No sooner will a young researcher think, “That’s it, I’ve finally got a handle on how wolves respond in a particular situation,” than they’ll do something to prove him at least partially wrong. Those of us who’ve been in this business for very long have come to accept a professional life full of wrong turns and surprises. Clearly, this is an animal less likely to offer scientists irrefutable facts than to lure us on a long and crooked journey of constant learning.
Any discussion of how wolves establish and defend their territory needs to begin with the fact that not all packs in Yellowstone are created equal. The national park contains what might be best thought of as two distinct populations of wolves—one living on the northern range, the other occupying the interior. Wolves living in the northern system, at the heart of which is the Lamar Valley, enjoy a home turf generally lower in elevation than elsewhere in the park, where grass is more plentiful, and thermal features are few and far between. More elk winter here than in the entire rest of the park. Indeed the vast majority of the rest of the elk herds, except for a relatively small group known as the Madison-Firehole, will with the coming of snow and ice drift down and out of the national park altogether. In most years a summering population of between 25,000 and 35,000 animals has by December dropped to roughly 4,000 to 7,000, most of those concentrated on the northern range. That particular distribution led to an abundance of wolves—fully half the wolf population—living in about 15 percent of the national park. That situation provided us with an important key to understanding behavior related to territory: Specifically, wolf packs densely concentrated on the northern range meant a higher level of interpack conflict. Meanwhile so-called interior packs have had fewer elk available to them. That’s forced them to supplant their winter diets with bison, and in at least one group—the Delta Pack—by an occasional moose. What’s more, deeper snows in the interior of the park, along with the presence of thermal sites—warm, largely snow-free zones where prey animals gather to feed—lead to different hunting strategies. Here the wolves often take prey animals not merely by running them, as usually happens with the northern packs, but by trying to force them away from those warm zones into deep drifts of snow, where it’s tougher to defend themselves.1 Finally, during the first ten years of the reintroduction, the wolves in the interior were living in relatively isolated territories—again, the result of fewer elk, which made interpack skirmishes fairly rare.
In short, the conditions these two populations face are very different, and those differences have shown up in everything from the physical size of individual animals, to population growth, to the number of litters born to the packs. (On a side note, one of the great ongoing debates among wolf researchers is whether wolves kill more when prey is abundant, or if in fact they simply kill at a rate that keeps them minimally fed.2 Our data in Yellowstone suggest the latter is true. Wolves on the northern range have five to six times as much prey available to them as interior packs, yet both groups kill at about the same rate. Not that wolves won’t kill more if the prey is vulnerable, as we see every year in late winter, when elk are at their weakest. But at other times of year, taking down a healthy, well-fed ungulate is a dangerous business—so much so that wolves may only put themselves at risk when they’re genuinely hungry.)
Keeping the above points in mind, it becomes all the more interesting to note that by 2011, our surveys were telling us that for the first time, the interior of the park actually contained a bigger population of wolves than did the northern range. With elk numbers down for the time being, having dropped by 60 or 70 percent, interior packs may actually be better positioned—able, unlike the northern range wolves, to augment their diets with bison and, every so often, with other ungulates.
People often refer to all sorts of carnivores as being territorial—from cougars to bears, lynx to wolverines. But most of these use broadly overlapping home ranges, never defending them anywhere close to as vigorously as wolves do. Of all mammals, few can be considered territorial in the classic sense. But as we’ve seen time and again, wolves definitely make the cut, ready at the drop of a hat to protect their home ground from other packs, sometimes ending up locked in ferocious battles that kill, maim, or otherwise injure the competition.
Because they ended up living closer to one another, the wolf packs released in and around the Lamar Valley during the first two years of the project would prove key to gaining new knowledge about territory. In March of 1995 we set free six members of the Crystal Creek Pack into the heart of the Lamar—again, one of three groups brought down from near Hinton, Alberta. The potential to make a good living here was hardly lost on Crystal Creek, whose members ended up wandering very little during that first year, finding everything they needed and then some right here. Likewise in that same spring would come the Rose Creek wolves. As previously noted, on walking free of the pen two members of this latter pack left the park to have pups, though the alpha male would die shortly before their birth in an illegal shooting. In an attempt to safeguard the new family, we brought them back to the pen to allow the pups to mature. When the group was released again into the Lamar in the autumn of 1995, they drifted westward several miles, leaving the heart of the valley to Crystal Creek.
While both of these wolf packs enjoyed a fairly peaceful coexistence through the winter, things changed in a big way the following spring. It was then, in April of 1996, that we released another pack into the Lamar Valley near the base of Druid Peak. Given both the size of the area and the abundance of prey, we assumed the Crystal Creek Pack—by then already firmly established in the Lamar—would bump these new wolves, known as the Druid Peak Pack, to the next best place without serious conflict. We were wrong. Considering the Druid Peak Pack came from a part of British Columbia with healthy wolf populations, in hindsight it makes good sense that they might arrive in Yellowstone with a highly protective, firmly territorial mind-set, unconcerned whether there was excellent habitat with no competition not far from their release site. Besides, just as individual wolves show a wide range of personalities, so too do the packs themselves. And from the very beginning the Druids showed an exceptional fierceness—traveling widely, more than happy to take on any wolf they happened to run across. In other words, they had a territorial mentality with no territory.
The first major clash came just weeks after their release, in May of 1996, with the Crystal Creek wolves. The Crystal Creek Pack had denned in the east end of the Lamar Valley that spring, in a loose patch of Douglas fir along Soda Butte Creek. No sooner did the Druids find them before they set about killing the alpha male, Number 4, and at the same time badly wounding his mate, alpha female Number 5. We’re not sure, but it’s quite likely they also killed the pups, which we looked for but never found. Shortly afterward Number 5 was seen in Lamar Valley, nursing her wounds; standing beside her was an unrelated two-year-old male, Number 6, who by no small miracle appeared uninjured.
This violent encounter forced a new beginning for the Crystal Creek Pack. Together 5 and 6 started drifting south, arriving in twenty-five miles at what would be their home for many years, in the high, handsome Pelican Valley of central Yellowstone. (In time Number 5 and her mates would take a new name, Mollie’s Pack, so designated in honor of Mollie Beattie, the courageous former director of the US Fish and Wildlife Service, who died of a brain tumor shortly after the reintroduction. To pull off this project Mollie had held the line in the face of great antagonism. Following her death some of her ashes were sprinkled near the Crystal Creek pen.)
In all of North America, Pelican is one of the only valleys where you can find wolves, grizzlies, and bison. In a very real sense, what America was prior to European settlement this small basin in the middle of Yellowstone is yet today. Dan MacNulty, who’s dedicated long hours to studying wolves and bison in Pelican, has said that if the Lamar is the heart of Yellowstone, as so many like to claim, then Pelican is the soul. During late spring and summer months, the place is a Garden of Eden, giving rise to mile after mile of silver sage and Idaho fescue. True to its name, white pelicans can often be seen in the distance, drifting without a sound on motionless wings. As summer begins unfolding, elk and bison pour in from the lower valleys, feasting on nutrient-rich grasses and forbs.
Yet for all its beauty and diversity, in winter this is arguably one of the harshest climates anywhere on the continent—a frigid weave of deep snow and bitter cold. Temperatures routinely bottom out at thirty or even forty below zero, with snows piling three and four feet deep. Elk, the preferred food of Yellowstone’s wolves, are rarely found in that season—a shortage that each year forces Mollie’s Pack to journey out to lower elevations. Yet, and for reasons we may never understand, they always return. On most winter days what survives here are a mere two hundred bison, many old and tough, supersize behemoths that somehow manage to scrape out a bitter existence around the handful of thermal areas that remain free of snow. To save energy the bison move very little, thereby preserving their stored body fats. Even so, by the end of winter they’re often weak, literally hanging on for dear life. Waiting for spring. And these days, watching for wolves.
For a wolf, even a weak bison can prove a phenomenally challenging foe. It would take Number 5 and the pack mates she eventually gathered around her several seasons to become bison hunters. But learn they did, driven by the same desperate circumstances as their prey. I remember watching film that Dan shot of two separate hunting events in 1999 involving Number 5 and thirteen other wolves, engaged in a battle with a single bull bison lasting just over nine hours. Again and again the wolves drove the bull into deep snow—a move meant to compromise his footing, his kicking power. That done, several members of the pack leapt onto his back, biting and tearing. Managing with great effort to free himself from the drifts, the bison then stopped and literally shook the wolves from his back, at the same time slashing with his head, trying his best to hook them with his horns. Over and over each animal pressed the other, both slowly wearing down. In most situations like this it would’ve been the wolves that gave in. Not this time. In the end the bison went down. The following year, 5 would lead her pack in taking at least two more bison, though undoubtedly there were more, battling in what by then was a relatively old age with uncanny ferocity, never giving up. This, even though by that time her pack was down to a paltry four wolves.
During most of the first decade of wolf reintroduction, the size of Mollie’s Pack stayed small. On only two occasions did it grow to more than ten animals, including once during the summer of 2003, when the pack swelled to twelve for a couple months, only to drop back down to seven by the following fall. Back then, some researchers thought the pack might be of such modest size because of the high mortality associated with living off bison. Others wondered if it was the lack of suitable prey, which in turn forced many of the pack members out in search of greener pastures—a notion our research with radio collars seemed to corroborate. And yet, as we were scratching our heads over that particular puzzle, the size of the pack actually began to grow, reaching twenty animals in 2011.
Mollie’s wolves have consistently claimed some of the largest animals in the ecosystem. Out of the hundreds of wolf captures we’ve made in Yellowstone, fewer than a dozen have pushed the scales over 130 pounds, and two of those animals came from Mollie’s Pack. Incredibly, one winter we captured two male pups from the group each weighing a whopping 120 pounds—more than 30 pounds above average. While we can attribute some of that weight to meat in their stomachs (we caught them on a bison kill), they were nevertheless among the largest pups found anywhere in the park. Both of these little giants later left the pack, one disappearing west of Yellowstone, the other going on to become alpha male of the Slough Creek Pack. John Varley, a thirty-year veteran of Yellowstone, wondered whether such supersizing had to do with the fact that only larger wolves can survive those furious brawls with bison.
As it turned out, the Druid wolves were just getting started. They kept traveling that summer, ever on the lookout to claim more territory. In June 1996 they met the Rose Creek Pack in a place called Slough Creek, just west of the Lamar Valley. And though in this case the Rose Creek wolves held their own, it was merely a taste of what the Druids would be serving up in the seasons to come. For those watching nearby, it seemed like total bedlam: animals running everywhere, intermingling and then splitting off, leaving the human bystanders feeling like spectators at a sporting event for which both the rules of the game and the identity of the teams were lost in confusion. Those early days in general often found us standing around giddy as school kids, hardly able to believe what was going on right in front of our eyes. What’s more, we were startled by what we saw happening not only between rival packs but also between wolves and coyotes, grizzlies, moose, elk, and bison. Clearly, all this visibility provided some great learning opportunities. Yet at first, some of that learning was lost on us simply because our scientific protocols—those methods we depend on to decipher the meanings of such encounters—were just plain lacking.
I’d learned much about the craft of working with wolves from Rolf Peterson on Isle Royale, as well as in Minnesota with Dave Mech. Both men, having been pupils of famed wolf researcher Durward Allen, set up their studies around the use of aircraft. That approach had to do with the fact that in the North Woods you rarely see wolves at all unless you’re flying over them, ideally in the winter months. In my own work at Isle Royale over nine summers and two winters, I hiked, skied, and snowshoed some four thousand miles—this on an island of 210 square miles. During that entire period I spotted a wolf from the ground only three times. Absent any good chance to sight the animals, as researchers we instead grew adept at examining sign, knowing when things were “red hot,” which meant finding tracks or feces just a few hours old. We examined prey animals killed by wolves, not to mention dissected every scat we found. The project changed in 1988 with the coming of radio collars (though to this day Rolf Peterson wonders if we really know that much more than we did when we were just out there hiking our legs off). Meanwhile over in Minnesota, in a study focusing on more wolf packs over a much larger area, radio tracking had been used from the very beginning. Supervised by Dave Mech, the project was based on capturing, collaring, and then tracking on a regular basis.
When it came to devising a research model for Yellowstone, we ended up drawing on this work at Isle Royale and in Minnesota—especially when it came to collecting data with radio collars. This kind of approach makes especially good sense when you consider the size of Yellowstone—some two million acres. Each of the forty-one wolves introduced to the park in 1995 through 1997 (this number includes the infamous Sawtooth pups) were outfitted with transmitting devices. But again, there was no protocol in our toolbox for how to watch wolves on the ground with our own eyes. At first I simply told field crews to take good notes, but in no time at all that left us drowning in paperwork. Desperate to come up with a more efficient means of gathering information, we eventually developed some of the most complex observational data forms imaginable. These address specific questions about interactions between wolves and between wolves and their prey, as well as leadership behavior, encounters with nonprey animals, and so on. “We were constantly revamping our forms,” noted former data manager Deb Guernsey, “because we were always thinking of new questions.”
All things being equal, securing more territory means having a better shot at finding food. But whether as a wolf you can actually pull down more real estate, or for that matter, even protect what you already have, depends on several factors. For starters, having a big pack can help, allowing you to basically throw your weight around when and where you see fit. In fact, we now suspect that forming a pack on the hotly contested ground of the northern range isn’t even possible for a mere pair of wolves—at least those who’ve tried it so far have failed.3 By all indications, in this competitive environment at least three or more wolves are necessary to hold turf against larger packs. Beyond pack numbers, the age of individual animals is also important; in the world of wolves, experience counts for an awful lot. Even the size of the wolves can be a factor.
Still another consideration has to do with whether the fight takes place on your territory or someone else’s—what might be called “home field advantage.” It’s a lot easier in your own backyard, after all, to know the best escape routes, even where to cross a swollen river. Way back when, during that crazy fracas in June of 1996, the Rose Creek wolves had this kind of advantage, and the Druids didn’t. At least in part because of that, despite the Druid wolves having picked the fight, Rose Creek quickly took the upper hand. As wolves are known to do in the face of such battles, Rose Creek wasted no time targeting Druid’s lead pair—the alpha male and female. In a stunning piece of drama, the alpha female, Number 39, was chased at full tilt into the swollen flood waters of Slough Creek. Suddenly, she was swimming for her life. Unable to stay long in the raging currents, she spotted a fallen tree lying in the water a short distance downstream and began swimming like mad in a mighty effort to reach it. She made it, too, struggling up and onto the trunk, looking like nothing so much as a miserable, waterlogged cat.
Amazingly, during this particular fight not a single wolf was killed. It was rather the aftermath of the battle that proved deadly. Three days later Roger Stradley and I were flying in the Super Cub when a couple miles from the site of the skirmish we found a dead Rose Creek wolf—a yearling male, Number 20, lying just up the steep bank of Buffalo Fork Creek. My best guess is that the excitement of the encounter had drawn the young Rose Creek wolf into chasing the fleeing Druids; once he was drawn away from the safety of his pack mates, the rebuffed Druids turned on him, making easy work of their lone aggressor.
The unlucky Number 20, by the way, became the first wolf casualty in Yellowstone to be picked up by means of a pack mule. This sort of recovery reflects a long-standing management policy of Yellowstone, where with few exceptions, we travel the backcountry by traditional means. That means by foot or horseback summer to fall, and in winter, by skis or snowshoes. Which is just fine with me. Having grown up riding horses (and in truth, having for years felt overrun by the motors of the world), I’m well aware that pack stock isn’t just easier on the land than vehicles are, but they’re also simpler to maneuver on tough terrain. The bottom line is that a truck has yet to be invented that could pull up alongside a dead wolf on the rock-strewn hillside of Buffalo Fork Creek, with several knee-deep swamps barring the approach.
Again, playing a key role in wolf operations from the beginning—managing not only these sorts of recoveries but also regular feeding operations when wolves were in the acclimation pens—have been top-notch horse and mule packers. One of them is a fourth-generation Montanan by the name of Ben Cunningham, the man who pulled the mule up to Number 20 that day. This was a delicate maneuver—not just due to the sharp terrain but also because the scent of a wolf is not something most stock animals react to calmly. Slowly, carefully, the wolf’s lifeless body was lifted and secured to the top of the mule—the poor mule’s eyes bulging with nervous energy—at which point we turned him and headed back the ten miles to the trailhead. It all went beautifully. After work we sidled up to a table in the K-Bar in Gardiner, Montana, until nearly 10 p.m., talking on about the first wolf ever pulled out of the Yellowstone backcountry the old cowboy way. I made a decision right then and there: Ben was going to have to come along every time there was similar work to be done.
Years later, as the winter of 2000—2001 unfolded, the Druids moved west through the Lamar Valley, drifting still again into Rose Creek territory. By this point Rose Creek was no small pack—sixteen strong, after an earlier population peak of twenty-four. But then again, it was a motley group. Though two litters of pups had been born in 2000, the pack was never really united, circulating through their territory in disjointed fashion. Not a good thing when the Druids come to call. During a tracking flight on November 23, 2000, I was lucky enough to witness a spirited encounter between the two packs on Slough Creek flats—ground that Rose Creek had claimed since the earliest days of the reintroduction. For the Druids, moving about with twenty-seven wolves made for cumbersome traveling, with some animals always lagging behind; on this particular day, only six pack members were on the scene. From what we could tell sitting overhead in the airplane, Druid sensed the presence of other wolves while still a couple of miles away. Not having seen the Rose Creek animals ourselves, but rather taking our cues from the Druids’ sudden, hurried movement, we started looking, listening for radio signals. Sure enough, pretty soon we laid eyes on a ragtag group of Rose Creek wolves—two pups, with one lone adult female calling the shots.
Once Druid Peak actually sighted the Rose Creek wolves, the two Druid alphas, 42 and 21, wasted no time running straight at them. While the Rose Creek youngsters seemed hesitant, lost in confusion, there was no such uncertainty in the adult, female Number 155. In the blink of an eye she was off and running for her life. At this point the Druid Pack split apart, before long catching the two Rose Creek pups. After slipping on the ice and getting several bites, one fortunate youngster was given a reprieve when commotion elsewhere drew her attackers away. A short time later another pup was caught and pinned down, and from what we could see from the tracking plane he was a sure casualty. A minute or so later his attackers caught sight and sound of the Rose Creek adult escaping down Slough Creek and took off in hot pursuit. When the dust settled, we flew back to pinpoint the carcass of that ill-fated pup, wanting to memorize the location in order to retrieve the carcass. When we couldn’t find it, I radioed the ground crew, who’d also watched the attack, asking if they knew where he was. I could hardly believe my ears. The pup had run off!
This little wolf may have gained deliverance in part because he was young, and therefore not inclined to fight back. Besides being frightened, a wolf would at this stage of his life be accustomed to low ranking status in his pack. It would be nothing new for him, in the face of angry adults, to simply give up—an act of surrender that may have reduced the enthusiasm of his attackers. That, combined with the chaos of other wolves running around nearby, may explain how this lucky pup stumbled away to live another day.
From then on the Rose Creek wolves continued to lose more and more territory to the Druids. Even so, we wondered if such gains would be enough to maintain a megapack of twenty-seven animals. (The number of Druid wolves would later grow higher still, to thirty-seven.) Beside the basic issue of finding enough food, it’s hard to imagine that in such a large pack social dynamics wouldn’t be strained. We rarely saw all the wolves together as a single unit, the animals preferring instead to live and travel in several groups. In time there would come an actual splitting apart of the Druids, each faction taking in dispersing wolves from other nearby packs, forming elements of the Slough Creek, Geode Creek, Buffalo Fork, and Agate Creek Packs. Meanwhile the alpha male and female, numbers 21 and 42, carried on, still anchoring what had been traditional Druid territory.
Interpack skirmishes have been increasing on the northern range for some time now—a situation almost sure to lead to additional wolf mortality. Curiously, several long-term studies elsewhere in North America suggest these conflicts are prompted by a lack of prey.4 As elk numbers decline wolves get hungry, which draws them into new country in search of food, which inevitably results in their trespassing on another pack’s territory. With trespass comes fights, and with fights, often death. This is one reason some scientists—including early on Douglas Pimlott, a pioneer Canadian wolf researcher working in Algonquin Park, Ontario, as well as Adolph Murie—have thought of wolf populations as being “self regulatory,”5 their numbers controlled in part simply through the elimination of rivals. Despite this idea being nearly universally rejected, for the past several years we’ve nonetheless seen a stabilization of wolf numbers on Yellowstone’s northern range.6 As we mentioned previously, as of this writing, in December of 2011, the Yellowstone wolf population is 101 animals. Though it’s hard to say for sure, perhaps even with sufficient food on hand, wolf territories can only be compressed so much before deadly conflicts begin to erupt.
The northern range, with its rich resources, was quickly becoming center stage for an incredible amount of action and intrigue. And there was lots more wolf drama still to come.
Portrait of a WolfNUMBER 42
The sheer size of the Druid Peak Pack in 2001—along with the fact they often lived, right out in front of us, what seemed like epic lives, full of struggle and conquest—made for some of the most unforgettable encounters of the past sixteen years. To those who saw them from the national park’s northeast entrance road before the breakup, sometimes twenty or more animals cruising through the Lamar Valley like they were the best and brightest game in town, it will no doubt remain one of the great wolf-watching experiences of all time. Literally thousands of people saw this pack in their heyday; indeed, it’s probably safe to say that the Druid Peak animals became the most frequently viewed wolf pack in the world.
An early matriarch of the Druid Peak Pack was the exceptionally forceful, no-nonsense female Number 40, who in 1996 seemed to wrest control of the group from her mother, Number 39. Shortly after this apparent coup, mom left the pack to wander on her own for nearly a year, later returning to the group—possibly drawn back by a nearly irresistible urge to help rear pups born in the spring of 1997. Number 40 tolerated her presence, but barely. In late summer of 1997, 39 left again to travel alone until December, when she wandered eastward out of the park. Sadly, someone awakened by a dog barking in the middle of the night shined a light into the darkness and ended up shooting what he thought was a coyote, killing Number 39.
From 1997 to 2000, then, Number 40 was the undisputed leader—some might say full-blown tyrant—of the Druid Peak wolves. No one challenged her. By all indications one had only to look crosseyed at this alpha to find herself slammed to the ground with a bared set of canines poised above her neck. Few wolves have been as frequently observed as Number 40, and she was never shy about showing off her personality. Throughout her life she was fiercely committed to always having the upper hand, far more so than any other wolf we’ve observed in Yellowstone. The family member receiving the brunt of her punishment was her sister, Number 42—an animal whose long suffering at the hands of her cruel sister would be portrayed in two National Geographic films, leading the creators of those programs to dub her the Cinderella wolf.
In 1999 Number 42 split off from the main pack and began digging a den not far from the group’s traditional den site, which at the time was being used by Number 40. Not long after 42 finished the job, she received a visit from her foul-tempered sister, who wasted no time handing down one of the nasty trouncings she’d become famous for. As had happened countless times before, 42 did nothing to fight back—simply laid there and took it. Never again was she seen near her freshly excavated den. Given that wolves only dig dens for the purpose of giving birth, those of us watching were intensely curious about whether 42 had in fact had pups. Still, because we try never to disturb wolves during the denning period, afraid that our presence might have negative effects, all we could do is sit back, wait, and wonder. Finally, when it became obvious that the den was completely abandoned, we shouldered our day packs and hiked in to check it out. There was no evidence of pups, though by then it had been long enough that another animal could have easily stumbled upon the site and devoured them. Whether Number 42 actually gave birth or simply experienced a “pseudo-pregnancy”—essentially a false pregnancy, which causes a female to behave like she’s pregnant—we’ll never know.
The next year, though—in 2000—things went rather differently, providing another first for those of us in the business of studying wild wolves. As mentioned earlier, in that year three females of the Druid Peak Pack dug dens and all three had pups. Number 40, the alpha female, used the pack’s traditional den. Meanwhile Number 106, a low-ranking wolf in the pack, excavated a site several miles away, at Pebble Creek. Finally there was Number 42, who went the other direction, this time digging her den in a loose cluster of trees in the middle of the Lamar Valley. Wolf motherhood brings with it a nearly constant demand for nursing, which means in the time immediately following birth the females rarely get a chance to leave the den. For this reason it’s extremely helpful to have other adults around to lend a hand. Few of those other adults visited the foul-tempered Number 40 at the main den site, leaving her to rely mostly on her mate—that fine alpha male, a wolf long on patience, Number 21. Due to her low social ranking there was even less help around for 106, who remained mostly alone. Number 42, however, the so-called Cinderella wolf, was routinely assisted by numerous adult females, most notably two sisters born into the pack three years earlier, numbers 103 and 105.
Life at a wolf den is for the most part calm and peaceful. Alpha females typically pick secluded places that offer both shade and water, though on a few occasions I’ve seen dens excavated out in the open sun. Pups poke their heads out roughly ten to fourteen days after birth, stumbling into the world totally reliant on the pack, and especially their mother, until they’re about two months old. As small and clumsy as they are at first, the pups mature rapidly. Needle-sharp teeth come in fast, leading their mothers to begin weaning at about five weeks. I’ve watched nursing wolves around this time, burdened by five or more little pups scurrying to their teats for another meal, and I could almost see the females wince in pain. Needless to say, as the weeks go by the bouts of nursing get shorter and shorter, finally stopping altogether, at which point the pups begin to consume solid meat.
Six weeks after the pups were born, Number 42 and her faithful cadre of female attendants decided to head out for a jaunt. Near Number 40’s den site the troop stumbled across the old matriarch herself, and as usual, she lit into Number 42 with what even for her was tremendous ferocity. Then, as if wanting to make up for recent lost opportunities, she turned on Number 105, determined to give her a good thrashing as well. Soon thereafter all the wolves, including Number 40, headed back in the direction of Number 42’s den site. By this time it was growing dark, leaving those of us watching in the lurch, desperate to know what would happen next.1 That a lot did happen that night, though, there can be no doubt. The next morning Number 40 showed up in the Lamar Valley near the Buffalo Ranch, about a mile from Number 42’s den site—bloody and staggering, barely able to stand.
Among the first on the scene was biologist Kerry Murphy—“Murph,” as we like to call him. Number 40 was in such bad shape, her wounds so severe, Murph thought she’d surely been hit by a car, perhaps trapped under the carriage and knocked against the pavement. He couldn’t imagine other wolves inflicting such damage. I got the call just as we were about to take off from the Gardiner Airport on a routine tracking flight; still not sure what had really happened, continuing to think 40 had been hit by a car, we decided to bring her in and tend her wounds. (Only when animals are hurt by humans—an “unnatural event,” in other words, such as being hit by a car—is it considered appropriate to intervene. Had we known Number 40 was attacked by other wolves we would’ve simply let nature take its course.) As it turned out, despite having made the decision to help, we never got the chance. Moving to place 40 in the back of a pickup truck, Murph simply walked over and picked her up—an unheard of act when it comes to wild wolves. Within minutes of loading her for transport, this feisty, aggressive matriarch of the Druid Pack—the wolf avoided by most and feared by all—was dead. Of course we’ll never know exactly what happened. But assembling available clues, we imagined events unfolding something like this:
Shortly after dark a massive fight broke out, somewhere near Number 42’s den site. Unlike the clash in 1999, though, this time 42 had no intention of letting the testy alpha get anywhere near her pups. We assume that as the wolves drew near to 42’s den, with 40 close behind, 42 turned and attacked her sister. Much as happens with dogs, when a fight breaks out among two wolves, other members are quickly recruited into the skirmish, each taking the side of her ally. For Number 40, allies were in short supply. It was payback time. We know from checking radio collar signals that besides Number 42, at least two other adult wolves were probably involved in the attack, including the two sisters, 103 and 105. Besides leaving Number 40 with a ruptured jugular artery, later determined to be the actual cause of death, her carcass was riddled with enough holes and cuts to suggest an attack of horrific proportions. One wound on the back of her neck was so deep I could bury my index finger all the way to the knuckle with room left over.
If our version of the story is correct, it represents the first time in the scientific record that an alpha wolf has been killed by her own subordinates.2 Admittedly, it’s not impossible that Number 40 was killed by another wolf pack. Yet the battle occurred in the middle of Druid Peak territory, whereas the vast majority of territorial skirmishes with other packs happen near the edges. Furthermore, we know from radio collar signals that at the time of the fight none of the wolves from neighboring packs were anywhere close to the middle of the Lamar Valley.
For the remaining members of Druid Peak, life went on without skipping a beat. Over the next four to six days Number 42 was seen carrying her pups one by one in her mouth to the traditional Druid Peak den, a site that recently had been fully and fiercely under the control of Number 40. Even more intriguing is the fact that not only did Number 42 end up adopting and raising the former alpha female’s pups right alongside her own, but she also welcomed in low-ranking Number 106 and her offspring. And so it was that in the summer of 2000 three separate litters of pups—twenty-one animals in all—were raised in a single den. Clearly the tyrant was out, and in her place had come a far more benevolent leader. (Wolf project employee Rick McIntyre has wondered if simply being out from under the force of Number 40 allowed some of the lower-ranking Druid females to finally come into their own. Despite her low status, for example, Number 106 would after 40’s death show herself to be highly capable of leadership, becoming among other things the finest hunter in the pack. For years she remained a tireless and, by all appearances, benevolent leader of the Geode Creek Pack.)
On the last day of January 2004, Number 42 was involved in what we believe was a clash with Mollie’s Pack. It would be her last. While both circumstantial evidence and a careful necropsy confirmed that her death was indeed due to wolves, we’re not entirely sure which ones, since there were two rival packs in the area. Miraculously her mate—Number 21, formerly a partner to the ill-tempered 40—escaped unscathed, even though this particular rumble happened during breeding season, when the two were almost never more than a few feet apart. If it was in fact Mollie’s Pack that delivered the fatal blow, the tale becomes one Shakespeare would love—the queen wolf dead, an act of revenge after all those years following the eviction of Mollie’s Pack (then called the Crystal Creek wolves) from the Lamar Valley. Of course wolves aren’t wired that way. Number 42 died along the pack’s territorial boundary, where on any given day there exists a high danger of being fatally wounded in a skirmish.
At the time of 42’s death, the Druid Peak Pack was bigger than Mollie’s, seventeen animals versus seven. That might lead one to think the outcome of the fight would be a foregone conclusion—especially since Mollie’s Pack were the invaders, not in possession of “home field advantage.” But of Druid’s seventeen wolves, nine were pups—animals without a lick of experience to draw on, sure to be less than helpful when things got ugly. In contrast Mollie’s Pack had only two pups, which for all practical purposes made the fight between eight and five. Furthermore, we believe the Druid pack was split. An uncollared female nicknamed “U-black”—so called because of a U-shaped marking on her chest fur—along with another female wanderer, Number 255, were likely out soliciting males (behavior not much seen before Yellowstone), making the numbers more or less equal. Remember too that 21 and 42 of the Druids were by then old-timers, both about eight years old, and not as big as Mollie’s wolves.
The other group nearby was the Agate Creek Pack, and indeed 42 died fairly close to their den site. We ultimately pinned her death on Mollie’s wolves, though, in part because it correlated perfectly with one of the rare trips this pack made to Druid Peak territory. What’s more, having territory immediately adjacent to the Druids had given the Agate Creek wolves a certain familiarity (some of the Agate wolves are in fact old Druid wolves). In the past the two groups had sometimes come within view of each other while skirting the common edge of the two territories, yet nothing happened. Given such an uneasy truce, why would they on this particular day decide to attack? And finally, at the time of 42’s death the Agate Creek Pack had even less firepower than did Mollie’s, sporting only three adults.
Given her gentle personality, along with distinct markings that made her easy to recognize, 42 had become a fast favorite to the crowds of wolf watchers routinely gathered along the national park’s northeast entrance road. Following news of her death my e-mail was flooded, the phone ringing off the hook. Those who’d followed the story of the Yellowstone wolves truly lamented this animal’s passing, as did many of us working for the wolf project. After visiting her body atop Specimen Ridge, I discussed the experience with several people waiting beside the road for news, some of whom broke down in tears.
The death of 42 ended the opening chapter of wolf reintroduction in Yellowstone. She’d been one of the original animals to come to the national park in 1996 from British Columbia—what we often called a founder wolf. With her passing, none of the animals reintroduced from Canada remained.