|
Wild about wolves
Tourists come from far and wide to view Yellowstone’s
new attraction
by Becky Bohrer – Associated Press
Cliff Browne huddles against the cold air, his camera
lens pointed
toward two
distant dots on a hazy horizon. Daylight has broken,
and the gray
wolves are
showing themselves.
Browne’s voice fills with excitement as he begins
counting them, but
rises to
little more than a whisper as he angles his head for a
better view. “I
love
it!” he says. “I love it!”
Several wolves run across the snowy landscape before
disappearing from
view
into the trees. Another takes it slow, plopping down
in the powder. One
releases a lonesome howl.
Here on the northeast corner of the nation’s first
national park,
patient
wildlife enthusiasts like Browne have had a front-row
seat to watch the
gray
wolves’ sometimes controversial return to Yellowstone.
Wolf watchers will spend hours a day to catch even a
glimpse of the
animals;
some like Browne are out here almost every day during
winter. Their
luck is
generally good this time of year. Some wolves are
black, helping them
stand
out. Elk fill the river bottomland near the road,
providing at least
the hope
of a meal for wolf packs.
The wolf watchers slowly traverse the roads winding
through the park’s
Lamar
Valley, carefully scanning the hills and fields. They
maintain vigil
for long
periods at roadside turnouts, bundled in layers of
warm clothing,
scrunched
over tripods, with their binoculars, cameras and
spotting scopes
surveying
areas the wolves are known to frequent.
Some days are better than others, said Browne, of
Cooke City, Mont.,
who has
made a living selling the images of wolves he captures
on film.
“You’ve got to put hours in. And, sometimes, you might
be here all day
long and
never see anything,’ he said.
Other days are a gold mine. Ed and Kathleen Dunn came
from Chicago,
hoping to
see just one wolf. They were not disappointed. The
wolves cooperated,
getting
close enough for a good view.
One, visible in the rugged distance without
binoculars, silenced their
anxious
chatter with a howl that carried on the wind.
People come to Yellowstone expecting to see wildlife.
But only in
recent years
has the public had any real chance of seeing gray
wolves in their
natural
setting.
Once eradicated from the park, the wolves were brought
back under a
contentious
reintroduction program that began in 1995. They now
number more than
130 within
the park, and total more than 570 in Montana, Wyoming
and Idaho. Nearly
90
percent of the wolves — including all of those in the
park — can be
traced to
the reintroduction program.
But their return has not been without critics.
Ranchers blame wolves
for
livestock losses and occasional attacks on domestic
pets.
Defenders of Wildlife, which compensates ranchers for
lost livestock to
wolves,
has paid out more than $206,000 to 180 ranchers since
1987.
While there are critics, Doug Smith, who heads the
park’s wolf project,
said
those who care about the wolves or even make wolf
watching a hobby see
something special, something worth braving cold
mountain weather to
witness.
“Wolves are considered now to be the symbol of
wildness,’ he said.
“There’s
kind of magic in their eyes. There’s some kind of
mysteriousness that
people
find alluring and worthy of protection.’
The Lamar Valley region is home to several packs and
is considered the
premier
area for spotting the animals, said Ed Bangs, wolf
recovery coordinator
for the
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
The wolves’ movements can be unpredictable. One of the
Yellowstone
packs, known
as the Nez Perce pack, left the park last year and
traveled as far as
eastern
Idaho. It killed a dog and got into a fight with
another wolf pack
before
returning to Yellowstone.
Watching the wolf watchers themselves can be
entertaining.
Word that wolves or the elk they eat are moving can
send watchers
rushing to
their vehicles in their own pack.
When there is a sighting, some wolf watchers get
quiet. Others gesture
animatedly at what they see through their binoculars
or scopes — which
may
appear only as a dark, moving blob to a novice with an
unaided eye.
“To me,’ said Sally Miller of Great Falls, Mont.,
“they bring back the
balance
of nature that’s been missing for so long from the
park.’
—–
Close encounters
A rubber bullet permit was issued last month at
Yellowstone National
Park by
the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service after reports of
wolves becoming
perhaps a
little too familiar around people.
Wolves of the Druid Peak Pack reportedly killed an elk
just 40 yards
from the
road in Yellowstone’s Lamar Valley. Four Druids
hungrily ate while a
large
crowd of people gathered.
Biologists are concerned that the wolves will become
habituated to
people. They
also are worried about reports that snowmobilers have
fed some of the
wolves,
bringing back memories of Yellowstone’s black bears,
which were once
addicted
to campers’ picnic food. As many as 100 people a year
were being
injured by
food-habituated black bears before the Park Service
clamped down on
feeding and
got rid of the habituated bears.
Ed Bangs, FWS head of the Northern Rockies Wolf
Project, said he fears
Druids
dispersing outside of Yellowstone with no fear of
people or vehicles.
Bangs also said it’s possible a wolf could administer
a “disciplinary
bite” to
a human if people encircle the wolves at a kill, the
same way wolves
bite a
subordinate member that doesn’t respect its place in
the pack.
Source
| 