Missing Yellowstone wolf pack spotted
CODY, Wyo. (AP) – Missing for nearly a month, the Nez Perce wolf pack was
spotted this week in Yellowstone National Park’s Hayden Valley.
‘The core group is back in the park,’ park spokeswoman Cheryl Matthews
said.
The pack, which has as many as 20 members, disappeared in mid-October. Its
members were spotted separately after that as far south as Green River,
but no one had seen the entire pack.
This week, 11 members of the pack were spotted, and more could have
returned to other parts Yellowstone, Matthews said.
Matthews did not know where the rest of the pack had been in recent weeks.
The wolf spotted near Green River, one of nine pups brought to Yellowstone
in 1996, was not expected to return, biologists have said.
The disappearance has almost become expected each winter.
Last year, the pack was spotted in the National Elk Refuge, 60 miles to
the south, after disappearing in mid-December, eventually returning to the
park.
The pack also disappeared from central Yellowstone in 2001, resurfacing in
eastern Idaho, where members of the pack killed a dog before also
wandering back into the park.
This year, the pack apparently spread in different directions, leading
some to question its future and if the wolves would return.
Wandering pack returns to park
by the Billings Gazette Staff
The wandering wolves have returned to Yellowstone National Park – many of
them, at least.
The Nez Perce pack, missing from Yellowstone since mid-October, was
spotted this week in Hayden Valley
“The core group is back in the park,” said Cheryl Matthews, a park
spokeswoman.
She said 11 members of the all-gray pack were seen. There may or may not
be more in Yellowstone.
One of the males from the pack, No. 72, has been spotted with a female
wolf farther south in Wyoming. The wolf, which may have been the pack’s
alpha male, was not expected to return to the park, according to
biologists.
Matthews said she was not sure where the rest of the Nez Perce pack has
been in recent weeks.
The disappearance act has become almost an annual affair.
The pack left Yellowstone in November 2001 and turned up in eastern Idaho,
near Afton, Wyo., before returning to the park. Last December, the pack
left Yellowstone for six weeks, turned up at the National Elk Refuge near
Jackson, Wyo., and eventually went home.
Wolf biologists theorize that the pack, which could have as many as 20
members, may be leaving the park at the onset of winter looking for food.
But this year, with members of the pack apparently scattered in different
directions, there were questions about whether it would re-form again in
Yellowstone. The recent return of 11 members may begin to answer that
question, but, as of Wednesday, the location of the remaining members was
still unknown.