Central Idaho wolf heads up new pack near Meeteetse
By MIKE STARK
Gazette Wyoming Bureau
A wandering wolf from central Idaho – not seen since 2000 – has resurfaced
west of Meeteetse as the apparent alpha male of Wyoming’s newest wolf
pack.
Federal officials started trapping and collaring the recently formed
Greybull River pack over the weekend and were surprised to find that one
of the wolves they caught, a 4-year-old male, already had a collar.
A check of records showed the wolf had been collared as a pup in September
1998 as a member of the Thunder Mountain pack near McCall, Idaho, which is
north of Boise. The wolf, known at B-58, disappeared from researchers’
radar screen sometime in 2000 and remained missing until he was trapped in
Wyoming by Marshall Robin of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Wildlife
Services.
Although wolves often move from place to place, it’s rare for a wolf to
travel so far, particularly through open areas in Idaho to the Wyoming’s
rugged terrain.
“It’s happened from Montana to Idaho but not really from Idaho to
Wyoming,” said Mike Jimenez, a Wyoming-based wolf biologist with the U.S.
Fish and Wildlife Service. “By airplane, this is about a 304-mile
dispersal distance.”
He said the wolf probably traveled through the Arco, Idaho, area and
possibly Craters of the Moon National Monument on its way to join the
Greybull River pack.
“He’s come a long way,” Jimenez said.
Getting the gray wolves to disperse throughout the wolf recovery areas –
which include central Idaho, Yellowstone National Park and portions of
Montana and Wyoming – is important part of their recovery, Jimenez said.
Though the three areas are separated for planning purposes, it’s important
that the wolf populations stay linked and mix to avoid inbreeding.
“The fear was about creating these little islands of genetic
bottle-necking,” Jimenez said.
Wolf populations should also be connected so that if disease or disaster
strikes one or two areas, the rest of the population can take up the slack
for those loses. “That way, we don’t have all our eggs in one basket,”
Jimenez said.
Jimenez said the wolf caught near Meeteetse is at a “prime age” for a
dispersing male and is doing his part for the larger wolf population.
“That’s the whole idea,” he said.
It’s unclear whether the wolf joined an existing group of wolves in
Wyoming or whether he paired up with a female in Yellowstone and started a
new pack. Jimenez said reports of the wolf’s behavior indicate that he’s
the pack’s alpha male.
Though he doesn’t have a new number yet, the wolf’s collar has been
replaced so scientists can track him in the Greybull River pack range,
which extends west of Meeteetse toward Yellowstone.
With the collaring project under way, Jimenez said the Greybull River pack
that was first spotted last year is now official.
“It has five or six wolves plus pups,” he said.
Trapping and collaring is expected to continue next week in the remote
hills where the pack has been spotted recently.
There are currently 18 wolf packs in Yellowstone and the northwest corner
of Wyoming.
From Ralph Maughan:
Big surprise! Central Idaho wolf is in the Greybull Pack
June 12, 2002, updated June 14
Since the Greybull Pack in Wyoming was discovered last year, biologists
have been trying to catch one of 5 or 6 adults in the pack.
This week they did, but the wolf already had a collar, albeit
non-functioning. The wolf was B58M, who originated in Idaho’s Thunder
Mountain Pack. By 2001, B58 had traveled from his native pack southeast
about 150 miles to Copper Basin. He remained in the Copper Basin vicinity
(still in Central Idaho) for several months . Then he was lost, but in
fact he traveled about 300 linear miles (and much more on the ground) to
join with or help form Wyoming’s most southeasterly pack — The Greybull.
I believe this is the first known instance where an Idaho wolf has
migrated into the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem (GYE), and a long way at
that because the Greybull River is almost east of the GYE.
Wyoming federal wolf manager Mike Jimenez said the pack appeared to have
some pups this year.
6-14 addition (Background). Wolf 58M was part of the Thunder Mountain
Pack’s first litter (back in 1998). The pack inhabits part of the west
side of the Frank Church River of No Return Wilderness in west central
Idaho. The Thunder Mountain Pack was founded in 1998 by wolf B22F
(introduced from B.C. in 1966) and an male without a collar.
The pack had 2 other important dispersers besides B58M. B58’s brother,
B57M moved about 95 miles to the south to help found the Big Smoky Pack,
which was for a while, Idaho’s most southerly pack.
Another brother, B59M, traveled 50 miles to the SE to form the Twin Peaks
Pack, which prospered for several years until it was mostly killed off by
the government like 3 other packs (White Clouds, Stanley, and Whitehawk)
to satisfy the interests of a few Custer County, Idaho livestock
operators.
The Thunder Mountain Pack still thrives in Idaho with 7 pups in 1999, 3
pups in 2000, and 9 pups in 2001.