Wyoming Range wolf pack totals 16
by Cat Urbigkit
The Wyoming Range went from officially not having a pack of wolves about a
week ago to now having at least 16 wolves running in one pack.
Mike Jimenez of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service confirmed in an
interview Monday that, in response to a report of a dead yearling heifer
last week, trapping efforts were initiated, with two wolf pups caught on
Thursday and two more on Friday. The pups were all fitted with radio
collars and released unharmed. The five-month-old pups weigh about 60
pounds at this point, with their adult teeth coming in now, Jimenez said.
A USDA Wildlife Services official managed to count as many as 16 wolves in
the pack.
“It’s probably two litters,” Jimenez said, because there appears to be a
lot of pups in the pack.
While some locals suspect that at least two separate groups of wolves may
have joined together to create this big wolf pack, Jimenez said he thinks
a double litter of pups is responsible. Regardless of how, this pack is
currently the largest pack in the region outside of Yellowstone National
Park.
A similar situation occurred with the Teton pack, with it having two
litters of pups two years in a row, Jimenez said. The pack grew from three
wolves, to 12 wolves, then to 23 wolves. Then one female died, a litter
died, and a bunch of the wolves dispersed. It was some of these dispersers
that got into trouble for repeatedly preying on livestock in the Upper
Green River region of the Bridger-Teton National Forest earlier this
summer.
“A lot of the wolves we’ve taken out were those wolves,” Jimenez said. The
Teton pack now has about 12-14 wolves in it, including pups, he said.
So far this year, federal officials have killed seven wolves in Sublette
County, including two in January near Highway 351, three in the Upper
Green River region this summer, and two last month in the Wyoming Range.
Jimenez said his agency has begun a “real tight” monitoring program for
the Wyoming Range wolf pack, noting that the pack is quite vocal, so
howling is heard readily in the Horse Creek area.
Merrill Dana of the Antelope Run Ranch confirmed that six wolves were seen
feeding on a dead yearling heifer on the ranch early last week, and that’s
the heifer Wildlife Services had confirmed as a wolf kill.
Dana and his wife have seen wolves in the area on numerous occasions, and
had a pack of three wolves inhabiting their area for the two years prior
to this larger pack being documented, as well as one adult with five pups.
Dana said the pups aren’t especially shy, adding that it’s not difficult
to get within a few hundred yards of the pups. The dead heifer was right
next to the county road, so a number of people saw the wolves as they fed
on the carcass.
“It’s a bad deal now, since we got so many so quick,” Dana said. “It’s
gonna get nasty. It’s coming too fast.”
But no further problems have occurred, Dana said, and the yearling cattle
seem to be taking the wolves in stride so far.
Federal officials, both with FWS and Wildlife Services, have “been very
helpful,” Dana said. “I have no complaints with these guys whatsoever.
They’re pretty helpful.”
Rancher Jim Greenwood said in an interview Tuesday morning that while he
hasn’t had any problem with the wolves in his cattle, “what’s spooked are
the antelope, and it’s not because of hunters.
“There are more in and around the cattle than out where they usually are,”
Greenwood said. “I think the Wyoming Game and Fish Department employees
should be worried about having a job with as many dead wild game animals
as there are.” Greenwood said that he’s seen quite a few dead antelope in
the area, while there are few moose to be found.
Greenwood predicts that if the large wolf pack stays intact when winter
sets in: “There is no way they’re going to hold those elk on those
feedgrounds, not with that big of a pack. They were blowing them off with
three wolves chasing them last year.
“It’s only a matter of time before they want to play with the cows because
the elk are too hard to find,” Greenwood said. “There is no way the elk
are going to stay on the feedgrounds.”
Jimenez said in an interview Tuesday that he’s heard concerns both for
livestock and wildlife in the area of such a large wolf pack.
“That’s a lot of wolves, all the sudden,” Jimenez agreed. “That was a
surprise. Double litters are always a surprise.”
Jimenez said reports of wolf sightings from the public indicated that
sometimes the wolves were seen together, but at other times, the wolves
seemed to be in two different groups, which is actually typical for wolf
behavior.
“It’s not 16 adult wolves,” Jimenez said, “and how many pups survive into
the winter is something else.” While there is a higher pup survivability
inside protected areas such as Yellowstone National Park, survival drops
outside that boundary.
Jimenez said outside of Yellowstone National Park, pups have about an
80-percent survival rate from the time they are first seen outside their
dens to when they enter their first winter.
Jimenez did predict that the surviving wolves will remain together this
winter, breaking into groups later on.
“If they start killing livestock in a repetitive way, we’ll start taking
some out,” Jimenez said. When it was pointed out that the wolves have
already been involved in livestock depredations, he responded: “We’ve
already taken two out. We’ve killed two adults.”
Jimenez was referring to the deaths of two adult wolves in the Wyoming
Range last month. After wolves were involved in killing domestic sheep in
the area, efforts to capture and collar the wolves were made, but the two
wolves initially captured died from apparent heat-related stress from the
capture effort.