American Wolf

by Nate Blakeslee

  In late summer he finally did take a break, though not for the reasons he anticipated. After a few weeks of feeling short of breath, he visited the doctor. Two weeks later he was in a hospital in Billings having heart surgery. As he recovered at home, Laurie and Doug kept him up to date on what he was missing in the park.

  Every night during his recovery he had the same vivid dream, in which he looked out the window of his hospital room and saw the Lamar wolves running across the hills. Nine days after his surgery, he was back in Yellowstone, watching those same wolves and helping other people do the same. He was driving another donated vehicle these days, this one a silver Toyota SUV decorated with enormous color decals depicting scenes from the park. Stretched across one side was a large photo of O-Six, with the snowy peaks and bucolic fields of the Lamar Valley arrayed behind her. Rick found that visitors loved the image, especially kids, who would flock to the car when he pulled into crowded lots. O-Six could still draw an audience, as good a reason as any to begin telling a story.

  * * *

  * We eventually agreed to use the pseudonym Steven Turnbull.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  I am grateful for the many people who helped me with this project. David Patterson, man of many talents, edited my first book and sold the second one; I am hoping he will actually write the third. At Crown, I want to thank my editor, Amanda Cook, who is alarmingly good at her job and wonderful to work with. I also thank Claire Potter for her careful attention to the manuscript, and Jon Darga for his assistance along the way. Thanks also to publisher Molly Stern for her early words of encouragement, and Vanessa Mobley for her vote of confidence.

  In Austin, thanks to my editors at Texas Monthly, Jake Silverstein and Brian Sweany, for agreeing to the book leave that helped me get this project under way, and to all my colleagues there—especially John Broders and David Courtney, for two years of jokes about howling, peeing, and scat, which meant so much to me. Former Texas Monthly intern Mai Schotz helped with timely and expert transcription.

  I am indebted to many people in Yellowstone. Laurie Lyman trusted me with her notes about O-Six, which allowed this story to be told in the manner it deserved, and introduced me to everyone she could in the wolf-watching community. Doug McLaughlin encouraged me at every juncture and provided invaluable insight about both the wolves and the people in this story. Rick McIntyre graciously gave me hours of his time for interviews in his cabin in Silver Gate, along the roadside watching wolves in Lamar Valley, and on the phone. I can honestly say I’ve never met anyone quite like him, and I thank him for allowing me to tell his story.

  I would also like to recognize the following list of watchers who helped Laurie produce her nightly update during O-Six’s time in Yellowstone (with apologies for those she may have forgotten): Stacy Allen, Doug McLaughlin, Kirsty Peake, Lynette Johnston, Chloe Fessler, Kathie Lynch, Dianne “Wendy” Busch (my Northern Rockies agent), Richard Brown, Sian Jones, Becky Cox, Bill Hamblin, Gerry Hogston, Jeff MacIntyre, Mark and Carol Rickman, Jim and Joellyn Barton, and Dave and Sherryl Clendenen.

  In Crandall, I want to thank Steven Turnbull first and foremost for extending his hospitality and answering my questions. He had nothing to gain and a lot to lose, and I appreciate his taking a chance on me on nothing but a handshake. Louie and Shelley Cary were gracious hosts and invaluable sources on Crandall, its history, and its people.

  I also wish to thank, in no particular order: Doug Smith, Dan Stahler, Nathan Varley, Mike Phillips, Jim Garry, Ron Blanchard (my old roommate), Mark Bruscino, Alan McIntyre, Ed Glynn, Mike Eastman, Dan Vermillion, Doug Honnold, Tim Preso, Ed Bangs, Carter Niemeyer, Mark Cooke, Betsy Downey, Lee Meador, and David Quammen.

  Finally, I’m grateful to my wife, Karen Poff, who encouraged me to go see wolves in Yellowstone in 2007 just before our kids were born, and for my two wonderful kids, who can’t wait to get back to Yellowstone themselves.

  SOURCE NOTES

  Prologue: December 6, 2012

  This account is based on interviews with Steven Turnbull.

  Chapter 1: Return of the Wolf

  The account of O-Six and her companions running down an elk was drawn from Laurie Lyman’s notes for December 12, 2009, supplemented by Rick McIntyre’s notes, as well as by my interviews with them.

  My descriptions of Rick are drawn from my interviews with him, his friends, colleagues, and family members, and from my own observations of him in action in Lamar Valley, spotting wolves and interacting with visitors. Over the years, Rick has given countless media interviews, though they have been mostly about wolves, not about him. See, for example, Josh Dean, “Pack Man,” Outside, November 11, 2010, and Brett French, “Silver Gate Man Spends Days Recording Wolf Movements,” Billings Gazette, September 2, 2008.

  Aside from a brief and ill-fated effort to bring wolves back to Michigan in 1974, the wolf reintroduction in Yellowstone and Idaho was unprecedented. The best history of the Yellowstone Wolf Project is Douglas Smith and Gary Ferguson, Decade of the Wolf, rev. and updated (Guilford, CT: Lyons Press/Globe Pequot Press, 2005). Carter Niemeyer, Wolfer: A Memoir (Boise, ID: Bottlefly Press, 2010), is another great firsthand account by someone integral to the project. Hank Fischer’s Wolf Wars (Guilford, CT: Falcon Guides, 1995) is an insightful account of the politics of reintroduction by one of the activists who helped make it happen. Bruce Hampton, The Great American Wolf (New York: Henry Holt, 1997), is a nice complement to Fischer’s account. Renée Askins, Shadow Mountain: A Memoir of Wolves, a Woman, and the Wild (New York: Anchor, 2004), written by an activist, is also helpful. Rick Bass, The Ninemile Wolves (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2004), describes the challenges wolves and their advocates faced in Montana prior to reintroduction. For a more critical take on reintroduction, see Cat Urbigkit, Yellowstone Wolves: A Chronicle of the Animal, the People, and the Politics (Newark, OH: MacDonald & Woodward Publishing, 2008).

  On wolves in general, L. David Mech, The Wolf: The Ecology and Behavior of an Endangered Species (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1981), and L. David Mech and Luigi Boitani, eds., Wolves: Behavior, Ecology, and Conservation (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007), are indispensable, as is Adolph Murie, The Wolves of Mount McKinley (1944; reprint Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1985). For an easier but no less thorough read on wolf behavior, see Peter Steinhart, The Company of Wolves (New York: Vintage Books, 1995).

  Chapter 2: In the Valley of the Druids

  The story of Chad McKittrick and the saga of 9 and 10 was expertly recounted in Thomas McNamee, “The Killing of Wolf Number Ten,” Outside, May 1997, and later in McNamee, The Killing of Wolf Number Ten: The True Story (Westport, CT: Prospecta Press, 2014).

  The story of 31 and 38 is drawn from Smith and Ferguson, Decade of the Wolf, along with interviews with Doug Smith. The account of 21 joining the Druids is drawn from Bob Landis’s film Return of the Wolf (2000), along with Decade of the Wolf. Bob Landis’s other Druid films include Wolf Pack (2003), In the Valley of the Wolves (2007), and The Rise of Black Wolf (2010). For more on Landis, see Kevin G. Rhoades, Wildlife Stalker: Days in the Life of Filmmaker Bob Landis (Missoula, MT: Five Valleys Press, 2011).

  My account of Rick’s early days in Yellowstone is based on interviews with Rick and Doug Smith. The story of Cameron Diaz and DMX’s visit is told in Smith and Ferguson, Decade of the Wolf. On the boom in wolf tourism, see James Brooke, “Yellowstone Wolves Get an Ally in Tourist Trade,” New York Times, February 11, 1996. Yellowstone became the first place where researchers could regularly observe wolves taking down prey. For decades, in one of the longest-running wolf studies in history, on Michigan’s Isle Royale in Lake Superior, the biologist Rolf Peterson studied the interaction of wolves and the moose they preyed upon. Over the course of thirty-five years, Peterson examined countless carcasses, but the island’s terrain was so heavily wooded and difficult to traverse that he actually observed a wolf pack killing a moose on only a half-dozen occasions.

  On Limpy�
��s ramblings, see Brett Prettyman, “Captor of Wolf Near Morgan Says His Experience Is ‘Cooler Than Stink,’ ” Salt Lake Tribune, December 29, 2002, and Brent Israelsen, “Wolf Caught in Utah Heads Home,” Salt Lake Tribune, December 13, 2002.

  Chapter 3: A Star Is Born

  This chapter draws on Laurie Lyman’s notes between January and March 2010, supplemented by Rick McIntyre’s notes from January 27 and February 10, 11, 20, and 23. My interviews with Rick, Laurie, Doug McLaughlin, and other watchers provided additional details.

  The Adolph Murie quote is from Wolves of Mount McKinley (1985 ed.), pp. 28 and 29. Denali National Park was known as Mount McKinley National Park until 1980.

  O-Six’s hunting prowess was well documented by Rick McIntyre, Laurie Lyman, and others who saw her take down elk without any assistance on numerous occasions. The elk is in the same family as the white-tailed deer (the only deer most Americans encounter in their lives), but the relationship between the two is akin to that of the Great Dane and the Chihuahua. Near Yellowstone’s Mammoth visitor center is a small herd of elk whose bulls are known for attacking cars that get too close during mating season; over the years, many rentals have been returned to the airport in Bozeman with dents in the doors. Wolves risk their lives every time they go hunting, and they hunt several times per week.

  The decision to label the wolves reintroduced into the Northern Rockies as an “experimental population,” which allowed for more flexibility in how they were managed—including culling on behalf of ranchers—is recounted in Hank Fischer’s Wolf Wars. In December 1980, as Fish and Wildlife was attempting to build support for wolf reintroduction, a male wolf dispersing from Canada appeared on the central plains of Montana and began killing livestock. Ranchers demanded action, but since wolves were on the endangered species list, there was no legal way to kill him. Over the course of the next year, the Bearpaw Wolf, as he was called, was blamed for dozens of livestock deaths (though most were never confirmed). Animal Damage Control tried unsuccessfully to trap and relocate him, but it had few agents with the relevant experience. Desperate to resolve the public relations nightmare, Fish and Wildlife finally declared the Bearpaw Wolf a wolf-dog hybrid (though there was no evidence for this, and it was later demonstrated to be false), and he was shot dead from a helicopter the next day.

  The episode further soured ranchers on reintroduction unless the ability to cull depredating wolves was on the table. Even after the agreement was in place, most ranching interests continued to oppose reintroduction. Yet Fischer and others involved in the early push for reintroduction suspected that some farsighted officials in the Northern Rockies agreed to it because they feared that naturally dispersing wolves would eventually make it to their constituents’ ranches anyway, as the Bearpaw Wolf had. Arriving under their own power, they would enjoy the full protection of the Endangered Species Act, so culling would not be an option, and land-use restrictions (e.g., no grazing on national forest land) might be implemented to protect them. Only through reintroduction could wolves be labeled an experimental population, giving ranchers the tools they felt they needed to control depredation. Others have pointed out that the natural dispersal of wolves might have taken another fifty years to repopulate the Rockies, assuming enough survived illegal poaching to ever regain a foothold at all.

  On Limpy’s death, see Patty Henetz, “Wolf’s Death Stirs Fears for Species’ Fate,” Salt Lake Tribune, April 7, 2008.

  Chapter 4: Killers

  This chapter is based on my interviews with Steven Turnbull and other Crandall residents, chief among them Louie and Shelley Cary at the Hunter Peak Ranch. The history of cattlemen and wolves in the West could be told through the various generations of the Cary family. Louie’s grandfather was born in South Texas and once worked on the celebrated XIT ranch in the Panhandle. He was among the first to drive longhorns from Texas north into the Rocky Mountains, the practice (dramatized in Larry McMurtry’s novel Lonesome Dove) that formed the foundation of the ranching economy as it exists today. The arrival of cattle, in turn, provided the impetus for trapping out the remaining wolves in the West.

  Local hunting outfitters Dave Siegel (from the KBarZ) and Mickie Fischer (Crandall Creek Outfitters) provided insight about the decline of big game hunting in Crandall, as did Crandall’s local celebrity, Mike Eastman, founder of Eastman’s Hunting Journal, among other publications.

  On the history of Crandall, see John K. Rollinson, “Historical Sketches of Upper Clark’s Fork of the Yellowstone and Its Tributaries Within the State of Wyoming,” Annals of Wyoming 12, no. 3 (1940): 222–24. Nancy Heyl Ruskowsky, Two Dot Ranch: A Biography of a Place (Greybull, WY: Pronghorn Press, 2009), provides some insight into the history of the region. On the changes in the area’s ranching business, see the excellent Ranchlands Study Team, Ranchland Dynamics in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem: Park County, Wyoming (Center of the American West, University of Colorado at Boulder, 2003).

  On the story of the Robinetts and the Diamond G ranch, see Elisabeth A. Wright, “Wyoming Ranch Becomes a Wolf Testing Ground,” Associated Press, April 8, 2001, and Christine Peterson, “Ranchers Find Ways to Live with Wolves Despite Losses,” Casper Star-Tribune, March 25, 2015. It was Hank Fischer’s nonprofit, Defenders of Wildlife, that began compensating ranchers from a private fund in order to maintain support for reintroduction.

  The Roman aphorism about dogs and wolves comes from Barry Lopez’s classic Of Wolves and Men (1978; reprint New York: Scribner, 2004). A dog is a domesticated wolf. (It may also be said that a wolf is essentially an uncommonly large feral dog.) Around thirty-five thousand years ago, most likely either in what is today known as Europe or in Central Asia, wolf packs led by unusually intrepid alphas learned that they could scavenge kills left behind by human hunters, and they began to shadow those tribes that would tolerate them. Early humans were very good at finding game, but wolves were even better; for clans astute enough to exploit this basic fact, the relationship became mutually beneficial. Eventually a few wolves were bold enough to join their newfound companions by the fire, and their descendants, over the millennia, became domestic dogs.

  Neanderthals, a hominid species that coexisted—and competed against—early humans, apparently never developed this relationship with wolves, leading some anthropologists to speculate that it gave Homo sapiens a competitive advantage against our early rivals, who eventually died out. See Bruce Bower, “ ‘The Invaders’ Sees Dogs as Key to Modern Humans’ Success,” Science News, March 21, 2015. Humans might not have become humans, in other words, without wolves.

  Of course, after tens of thousands of years of domestication, most dog breeds no longer much resemble their common ancestor. Like dogs, wolves have forty-two teeth, but a wolf’s jaws can exert twelve hundred pounds per square inch of pressure—roughly twice that of a German shepherd. Their long canines have an elliptical shape, made to resist breaking along the vector taken by a fleeing animal. And there are other, less obvious differences. The gray wolf lacks some of the dog’s genetic traits—tolerance of people chief among them. Wolves have larger brains, and studies of captive wolves have found them to be demonstrably smarter than dogs; they are better able to distinguish quantities, for example. Wolves also show more tolerance than dogs in their social interactions with fellow pack members. The pack mentality—the cornerstone of the wolf’s existence—is essentially a relic among dogs. While it has not disappeared altogether, it has lost its usefulness in a milieu where hunting and breeding are largely irrelevant.

  The line between the wolf and the dog is thinner than it seems. Wolf pups raised in captivity will accept humans as pack members, despite their genetic predisposition against it. Likewise our dogs, left to fend for themselves in the wild, would eventually begin behaving like wolves. If everyone in North America disappeared tomorrow and only their pets remained, our thirty-five-thousand-year-old experiment with domesticated wolves would quickly reverse itself. After dogs exhausted the bounty of trash—the sour
ce of food for most of the world’s dogs today—they would fill a new role in their respective ecosystems. Small breeds like dachshunds and Chihuahuas would survive by eating rodents. Over time larger breeds would form packs, establish territories, and migrate toward areas with bigger game, which they would learn to run down and rip to shreds. They would, in other words, become wolves again, even with nobody around to rename them.

  Largely under the radar for decades, the culling of predators by USDA’s Animal Damage Control (now known as Wildlife Services) has received some critical media attention in recent years; see, for example, Darryl Fears, “USDA’s Wildlife Services Killed 4 Million Animals in 2013,” Washington Post, June 7, 2014, and Tom Knudson, “The Killing Agency: Wildlife Services’ Brutal Methods Leave a Trail of Animal Death,” Sacramento Bee, April 28, 2012.

  Venerated by hunters, elk are considered a nuisance by many western ranchers. Like bison, elk carry brucellosis, and transmissions from elk to cattle have been confirmed in a limited number of cases. But unlike bison, elk have a considerable constituency in their corner, and slaughtering them to protect cattle—common practice with Yellowstone’s migratory bison herds—is considered beyond the pale.

  Fenced winter feeding grounds—known as elk refuges—dot the Northern Rockies and draw many visitors annually. Mostly unknown to those visitors, they were established as a concession to ranchers, who demanded that elk be kept off of their pastures when, every winter, they came flooding down from the higher elevations into the valleys to avoid the heavy snowfall. U.S. Fish and Wildlife and state wildlife officials, who maintain the refuges, stock them with a steady supply of hay and alfalfa pellets to keep the elk alive until spring, when they happily return to higher elevations.