Biologist finds dead wolf in park
A federal biologist recovered the body of a dead wolf in the northeastern corner of Grand Teton National Park April 30.
Wolf biologist Mike Jimenez found the lifeless female after picking up a mortality signal from her radio collar. Her body will be sent to a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service forensics lab in Ashland, Ore., to determine the cause of death.
Federal officials declined to speculate on the cause of death, preferring to wait until they receive results from the federal lab. Wolves are protected by the Endangered Species Act and by Park Service regulations. However, park spokeswoman Jackie Skaggs said officials saw no signs of human activity in the area where the dead wolf was found.
“It is a really remote part of the park,” she said, “and it doesn’t look like there were any visitors out in that area.”
The dead wolf was a 6-year-old, who had been a breeding female with the Teton Pack. But park officials had noticed her wandering alone this winter in the Gros Ventre River drainage and the north end of Grand Teton, Skaggs said. Her wanderings may suggest conflicts within the pack, Skaggs said.
The female, numbered 200 by biologists, was born on the southeast arm of Yellowstone Lake in Yellowstone National Park as a member of the Thorofare pack, according to federal officials. She dispersed from the Thorofare pack in 1998, and along with two other wolves formed the Gros Ventre pack, one of the first wolf packs in the Jackson area.
Biologists captured and placed a radio collar on her in 2000. Soon after she was collared, she joined the Teton pack. At that time, the Teton pack consisted of a single female raising five pups. The Teton pack’s alpha male had been struck and killed by an automobile in Grand Teton, leaving the female to raise the pups alone.
Wolf No. 200 and the Teton pack’s alpha female both produced pups for the pack in 2001 and 2002, an unusual occurrence. Most packs have only one breeding female and male and competition for the privilege of reproducing can be deadly.
This is about the time of year wolf pups are born, Skaggs said. The federal forensics lab may be able to determine whether wolf No. 200 bred this winter, Skaggs said.