Wolf Nation

by Brenda Peterson

  At New Mexico’s Ladder Ranch Hopa and Brother and their young yearlings continue to thrive—and await release. Meanwhile extraordinary news came from Dr. Brown at Wolf Haven. Hopa was indeed pregnant when she endured the long transport from Washington State to New Mexico. In an email photo attachment sent by the Ladder Ranch, five dark-brown puppies huddle together in the straw of their den. Hopa and Brother’s family has now grown to eleven. At Ladder Ranch Hopa, Brother, and their nine offspring are growing strong as they roam and hunt in their new territory of crisp sagebrush and arroyos.

  In the late fall of 2016 Mexico’s National Commission of Natural Protected Areas announced the third litter of wild-born pups had been sighted in the state of Chihuahua. This is the third year running that the breeding pair, M1215 and F1033, have produced pups, bringing the endangered Mexican wolf population in Mexico to twenty-one animals. And in October 2016 a wolf family from a Mexican captive-bred facility released a wolf family into the wild. Early in 2017 Hopa, Brother, and family will begin another long journey to Mexico’s Rancho la Mesa refuge before finally being released into the wild. There is hope that Brother and Hopa’s family will be less threatened by poachers because they will be released on semiprivate land in Mexico.

  AS I READ WENDY’S UPDATES on Hopa and Brother, I often gaze at photos of this wolf family. These Mexican wolves are the small but strong-willed survivors who first captured Edward Seton’s admiration and respect in his “Old Lobo” stories. Hopa’s powerful life force also echoes the “fierce, green fire” that once changed the heart of Aldo Leopold. The nearby Gila National Forest includes the Aldo Leopold Wilderness.

  This wolf family is returning to a country where wolves were all but extinct for three decades, where wolf biologist Cristina Eisenberg’s Mexican grandfather ordered her father to kill wolves, but he chose to allow them to live on his own ranch land. Maybe Mexico will now lead the way in restoring this first wolf that crossed continents to claim North America.

  In December 2016, Hopa, Brother, and their now nine offspring were at last released into the wild in Mexico. This successful release was the largest of its kind in either Mexican or American history. That snow-swept evening when the eleven crates were finally opened, the wolf family sprang out into the wilderness and freedom—fulfilling their long journey and giving hope for wolf recovery around the world. Wendy and Pamela from Wolf Haven helped release the wolves into a country that warmly welcomes El Lobo home. The next morning, Wendy sent me an email that said it all in one word: “La Liberacion!”

  EPILOGUE: SPEAKING FOR WOLVES

  Telescopes trained eagerly, we search the grassy waves of Yellowstone’s Lamar Valley, hoping to see wild wolves. It is the National Park Service’s hundred-year anniversary. I’m hoping to catch up again with longtime wolf researcher Rick McIntyre—whom I interviewed in 1995 when wolves were first reintroduced. I’ve also returned to Yellowstone to cover the grassroots Speak for Wolves 2016 conference on wolf recovery, which includes tribal biologists, wolf advocates, and the public.

  On a small bluff above Slough Creek Campground about fifteen of us brace ourselves, backs against a ferocious summer windstorm. Suddenly a dust devil snatches up many hats. A few scopes on their spindly tripods fly off like metal praying mantises. Determined, we stand our ground, huddling a little closer together for safety. Our small group of strangers, fast becoming friends, swap wolf gossip.

  “Heard one of the Junction Butte sisters was out hunting here before dawn this morning,” a lively birder in a brightly woven wool cap informs us.

  As she riffs on the complex family tree of the Junction Butte family, the knowledgeable wolf watcher reminds me that in Yellowstone the scientific names for wolves, unlike in other wolf studies, use the number first and the letter last. These so-called stud names help scientists keep track of and update the wolf families’ changing populations.

  On the bluff several other wolf watchers explain to us the history of this Junction Butte family that we hope to see. A group of adult sisters from the Mollies pack met up with a group of brothers from the Black Tail pack and formed the Junction Butte pack. The last founding surviving sister of the powerful Mollies pack, 970F, was the most recent alpha female, but she died this spring. Her two adult daughters, the three-year-old sisters 960F and 907F, are the mothers of the two litters of Junction Butte pups. Along with two brothers, they formed the Junction Butte pack. In unusual solidarity, the sisters now share a den. They chose the exact same ancestral den that Yellowstone’s most famous wolf, the much-loved 06, first dug. Between them the Junction Butte sisters birthed and are communally raising nine pups—five blacks and four grays. One of the pups has disappeared, believed dead.

  “Anyone seen the pups?” my friend and photographer Vanessa asks as she joins us on the bluff.

  Wolf watchers are especially alert for the thrill of again sighting any of these surviving pups. Born in mid-April, the pups were weaned at about five to nine weeks old. They still depend upon regurgitated food from other family members who will teach them to feed on the carcasses of elk or deer come autumn.

  Katie Lynch, who is on the board of the Wolf Recovery Foundation, recalls that first day wolf watchers caught sight of F969’s pups: “A round of applause and cheers erupted from the group as what looked like a furry black caterpillar toddled into view on the den porch.” It was easy to tell the two litters of wolf pups apart because “the younger pups were far wobblier on their short legs and had short, straight, stick tails, while the older pups were steadier on their longer legs and had longer, curvy tails.” Lynch details the Junction Butte family dynamics: one male yearling from last year’s litter is especially devoted to this year’s pups; he protects and plays with them in his role as doting uncle. Often he allows the growing pups to “crawl all over him.” There are five other yearlings—survivors of last year’s twelve pups—who also take turns babysitting so these new ones don’t wander away or fall prey to grizzlies.

  When a bear approached the Junction Butte’s den, Lynch notes, wolves surrounded the bear, then nipped at his butt to run him off. Another black bear venturing too near this precious den was treed by wolves who attacked “like a bunch of hounds.”

  “Look up there… across the creek at the Diagonal Forest,” the birder now directs us. We search a slanting stand of cottonwoods. “That’s where the JB’s den is.”

  This woman has the authority of a veteran wolf watcher and the equipment of an elder—high-powered scope and folding chair, against which rests a skillfully carved wooden cane. She’s quickly established herself as the alpha female of our little human pack.

  Long-term wolf studies at the Yellowstone Center for Research have shown that wolves organize into matrilineal groups. The project leader of the Center, Douglas W. Smith, notes that it is generally the alpha female—now called the dominant breeder—“who really runs the show.” There is some concern now that, with two mothers and multilitters in the Junction Buttes pack, there may be reduced survival for the pups because of competition for food. Mother wolves depend most on prime-age wolves (two to five years old) rather than just yearlings or older “helper wolves.” Prime-age wolves are better at hunting and foraging for the whole family.

  On the Lamar Valley bluff, our alpha female explains to us, “Life is tough, even for these Yellowstone wolves.” Her face is weathered from the wind and wrinkled from long days in high-elevation sunlight—a life of watching wildlife. When she’s not spotting wolves, she’s following bald eagles, prairie peregrine, mountain bluebirds, or Sandhill cranes, just a few of the abundant bird species in Yellowstone. She shakes her silver head, “Even protected here in the park from human hunters, no guarantees these wolves will survive.”

  Another wolf watcher, a man in his midforties sporting a camera with a huge telephoto lens, explains that many of the wolf families here still suffer badly from mange—a painfully debilitating infection from burrowing mites. Mange was first actually introduced deliberately to Montana
in the early 1900s by a Montana state wildlife veterinarian with the goal of eradicating predators, including wolves and coyotes. Two years after reintroduction into Yellowstone, wolves showed signs of mange, which causes incessant scratching and extreme fur loss. Sometimes mange-infected wolves will freeze to death in winter. Entire wolf families have been decimated by mange, including the Druid pack in 2010. At its peak of 37 family members in 2001, the Druids were the largest pack ever recorded. The latest wolf census in Yellowstone Park itself is 99 wolves in ten packs; the greater Yellowstone wolf population is 510 wolves. But mange is still a problem. Wolves with mange and fur loss must travel and hunt less at night—their preferred time—because of the cold. In 2016 the Lamar Canyon pack was hit hard by mange; researchers believe the disease may have caused the death of the family’s six pups.

  While we wait for any sign of the Junction Buttes, the photographer shows us snapshots of limping wolves, their legs and fur ravaged by this dangerous canid disease.

  “You all up here looking for wolves?” two rangy young men approach and kindly offer their scope to scan the valley.

  The young men are wildlife biologists from Georgia who traveled west for a survivalist course. In their well-worn jeans, backward baseball caps, indestructible hiking boots, and windproof jackets, they look well prepared to survive anything. As they stand together behind me, they are a shield from the violent wind that threatens to blow us all off the bluff.

  We are all anxiously awaiting the arrival of Rick McIntyre. If anyone can spot wolves in the Lamar Valley, it’s McIntyre. When I first met McIntyre here twenty-one years ago he was a tall and wiry researcher whose blazing red hair betrayed his Scottish heritage. I’ve kept track of his decades of wolf research and am excited to meet this veteran wolf watcher again. His forty years studying wolves have earned him the name “Wolf Man.” This is his twenty-third summer observing Yellowstone wolves. He is a historian of their genealogies and family stories. McIntyre is also a wonderful raconteur who makes facts come alive with every new sighting.

  On my crackling cell McIntyre told me, “There’s a good chance you’ll get to see the descendants of the original wild wolves you first watched here so many years ago. Remember the Crystal Creek pack?”

  Of course I remember the first wild wolves I ever saw in my life. The Crystal Creeks are Yellowstone’s longest-term pack; they eventually became the mighty Mollies, the pack that the founding sisters dispersed from to form the Junction Buttes. Twenty years of science in Yellowstone has given researchers—and us all—the invaluable gift of long-term wolf genealogies. Or, as researchers call such in-depth wolf histories, the “story of their genes.” Now, on this late summer evening, I dearly hope I will again witness the new generations of the founder Crystal Creek family.

  “No wolves where we come from,” one of the Georgia biologists says with obvious regret. “We mostly study snakes—diamondback rattlers and water moccasins.” On his cell phone he shows me a brief video of a water moccasin coiling around a metal pole in a fern-choked swamp. “They’re easy and really fun to catch,” he says with a bravado that is charmingly modest.

  “Check out that bison yearling at twelve o’clock,” his biologist companion says with real awe. “That boy better not wander too far from his buddies.”

  “Oh,” says our alpha female, “I’ve seen wolves wandering around bison herds for hours. Big guys pay no mind. Bison even take naps with wolves just a hundred yards away!”

  “Right,” someone adds with obvious admiration. “Only the Mollies are really powerful enough to take down a bison. And if any wolf goes after a bison, it’s at big risk.”

  I scan the creek, and about thirty-five lumbering hummocks of bison are grazing about a mile away. On my first day in the park I was caught in a traffic jam in west Yellowstone that I assumed was from the crush of tourists. But after an hour of stop-and-go traffic I came to a dead halt for a gigantic bison standing in the middle of the two-lane road. Shaking his shaggy, half-shed fur, he snorted and stood stolidly, pawing the yellow line. No one moved, but a lot of cameras clicked. At last a park wildlife official arrived with a bull horn blasting, “Go on, now! Git!” Slowly he herded the buffalo to amble across the road.

  The bison herd in the Lamar Valley is also in no hurry, even though someone says she sees a dark spec dash through the resting buffalo. “Hey, look across the creek, right there… at two o’clock!” the young woman cries out. “Is that a wolf?”

  All telescopes swing like batons to the Diagonal Forest. A palpable thrill runs through our small gathering. “Nope, it’s just a baby bison goofing around,” our alpha female finally gives her own short snort, dismissing the sighting. She explains to several Japanese visitors joining us that the Junction Buttes, like all wolves, rarely hunt bison. Elk and deer are their preferred prey. “Wolves usually take down the young and the vulnerable,” she says, “not the prime-age elk or deer who have the best bet at breeding.”

  She goes on to explain that after twenty years of wolves keeping the elk population in check, the elk herds have actually grown much stronger because the wolves culled the weakest among them: “Survival of the fittest.” She concludes that these stronger elk herds have actually made it more difficult for wolves to hunt them successfully—and that has led to a decline in Yellowstone wolf populations.

  I’m struck at how well versed many of my companions are in wolf biology. Back in 1995 those of us who watched the fourteen Canadian wolves—who were the first wolves to repopulate Yellowstone after a seventy-year absence—were as unfamiliar with seeing wild wolves as the wolves themselves were in exploring their new territory. Everything was so new, and there were so many unknowns: Would the wolves survive in this unknown terrain? What would be their effect on prey, like elk and deer? As author Tom Reed notes, “If Yellowstone and its wildlife were like some gigantic machine, elk would be its fuel.” Would wolves change or help restore the complex ecosystem? And of course, how would we tolerate living alongside this controversial fellow predator?

  But now in 2016, witnessing wolves with so many well-informed wolf watchers is like doing field science with citizen naturalists. Many of these veteran wolf watchers gather daily data and photos to share with Yellowstone researchers. McIntyre has written that these longtime and respectful wolf watchers have become “role models of proper behavior regarding watching and photographing wildlife”—how not to block the road when a wolf needs to cross and how to stay one hundred yards from wolves and not interfere with the wolves’ “natural behavior.” McIntyre credits these veteran wolf watchers with adding more to the scientific data than “would have been possible with limited staffing. A large number of critically important behavior sequences that have been published in Wolf Project peer-reviewed scientific papers originated with the watchers.”

  Such long-term study, says Douglas Smith, has “allowed us to look into the lives of wolves like no other study has been able to do.” Research into the wolves’ role in the ecosystem and “how wolves work in the absence of human exploitation” is Yellowstone’s “most important lasting contribution,” says wolf biologist Rolf Peterson.

  As we all watch and wait for any sight of wolves, the two Georgia biologists talk about the only Canis lupus left in their whole southern region, the critically endangered red wolves. Just this summer ground-breaking news about wolf genetics, especially in red wolves, has introduced new science and new arguments about America’s wolves. A DNA study from Princeton University offers genetic evidence that there is really only one wolf species in North America—the gray wolf. The red wolf and eastern wolf species, the study claims, are actually hybrids from interbreeding between gray wolves and coyotes. When so many wolves, especially in America’s East and South, were eradicated, the surviving gray wolves couldn’t find mates, so they interbred with coyotes. This interbreeding began in the 1920s and has resulted in the genomes of several eastern wolves in Algonquin Provincial Park in Ontario that are half gray wolf and half coyote.
Red wolves, this new genome study reveals, are 75 percent coyote and only 25 percent gray wolf.

  Some conservationists believe this new genome study is not definitive and needs more research. In any case, there are implications for policy. If the eastern and red wolves are not really their own distinct species, then the USFWS must “rethink its plan to delist the gray wolf as an endangered species… and to consider instead expanding its protection to hybrid species, which currently fall outside of the realm of government protection.” As Linda Y. Rutledge, an expert on eastern wolves, concludes, because eastern and red wolves still carry the DNA of an endangered species, they deserve protection. Even if they are not pure wolves, Rutledge says, these hybrid eastern and red wolves still play an important role as top predators in eastern forests. “If it can kill deer in eastern landscapes, it’s worth saving.”

  As the Georgia biologists and I continue to talk about the plight of red wolves, a nine-year-old girl pipes up. “My school adopted red wolves.”

  Her elementary school is a proud sponsor of the Red Wolf Coalition and has just watched the award-winning Red Wolf Revival documentary on red wolf recovery in North Carolina, their only remaining habitat.

  “There are only fifty red wolves left in the wild,” the girl informs me with authority. “We’re going to save them.”