Agencies call off wolf investigation
By Melody Martinsen-Acantha editor
Federal officials have halted an investigation into the possible death of a wolf on the national forest west of Augusta after a forensic lab determined the wolf’s collar mostly likely was pulled off by another wolf.
On Aug. 9, federal researchers discovered that the wolf’s collar was emitting a mortality signal – a radio signal that is broadcast if the animal wearing the collar does not move for a certain period of time.
Wilderness rangers later recovered the collar but found no wolf body in the area near the Prairie Reef Lookout Station on the Lewis and Clark National Forest.
Forest Service wildlife biologist Wendy Maples of Choteau said the collar appeared to have been tampered with as several slashes looked like they could have been made with a knife.
The collar had been placed on a black female wolf when it was just five months old. The wolf is now a yearling and was last known to be alive on July 17 when a flight of the area picked up both her signal and the signal of another young female in the Redshale pack.
Maples said the collar was padded with collapsible foam to fit a 5-month-old snugly, but to compress and stay on the wolf’s neck as its body grew.
It’s likely, she said, that some of the padding fell out and the collar was loosened. Then, young wolves, playing probably worried or pulled the collar off the female.
The federal forensics lab at Ashland, Ore., ruled that there was a 90-percent or higher probability that wolf teeth, not a knife, caused the serrations on the collar.
A year ago during the winter, as many as 14 wolves were reported in the Redshale pack, which ranges in the Sun River Game Preserve in the Bob Marshal Wilderness.
In early spring, the pack began ranging more widely, traveling east and west of the Continental Divide, hunting on both the Flathead and Lewis and Clark national forests. Maples said researchers do not think the pack denned or produced any pups last year.
Since last spring, sightings of the wolves have been few. The last observation was based on a radio signal picked up Sept. 22 in the area east of the Gates Park airstrip and east of the North Fork of the Sun River.
The now-defunct investigation had offered a $5,000 reward for information on the collar. Wolves are managed by federal officials as threatened species. Killing a wolf is a federal criminal offense.