Wolf Reintroduction: How the Wolves Came Back

Natural Recolonization

The first trace of natural wolf recolonization in the United States surfaced in April 1979 (Steinhart 1995). A team of bear and wolf researchers trapped, radio collared, and released a lone female wolf found in the vicinity of Glacier National Park (Steinhart 1995). Because of the growing interest in wolves, researchers began to track the whereabouts of the lone female wolf. The University of Montana’s Wolf Ecology Project hired a graduate student, Diane Boyd, as one of the principal researchers responsible for tracking the newly arrived female wolf (Steinhart 1995).

Boyd tracked the wolf for months, listening for and following radio collar signals. However, she was unable to find any additional signs that wolves had begun to recolonize Glacier National Park. Unfortunately, in July 1980, the wolf’s radio collar stopped transmitting signals. Boyd was unable to re-trap the wolf to replace the batteries. Thus her only contact with the wolf was through chance encounters with its tracks. Since no additional wolves were found, funding for the Wolf Ecology Project waned (Steinhart 1995).

Soon after the discontinuation of the Wolf Ecology Project, tracks from a pair of wolves were sighted in the northwest corner of Glacier National Park. Boyd and two other researchers began to observe and track the pair. Evidence soon indicated that the pair was courting. The researchers saw "places where the two wolves urinated in the same spot...Courting males and females urinate over each other’s marks in the snow...This was a mating couple" (Steinhart 1995:7-8).

In June 1982, just a few moths after Boyd determined that the pair would mate, a Canadian biologist spotted 7 wolf pups. The pair of wolves was now a pack. Although the father was accidentally killed in a bear snare, the mother, who was the same wolf that Diane Boyd was hired to track in 1979, raised the pups alone. With the advent of a wolf pack in the vicinity of Glacier National Park, the Wolf Ecology Project received some much needed funding. The newly formed pack was elusive. Sometimes researchers were able to discern their whereabouts, but other times their position remained obscured. Boyd and two other wolf researchers, Dr. Robert Ream and Mike Fairchild, named the pack the "Magic Pack" since it seemed to appear and disappear "as if by sorcery" (Steinhart 1995:9).

The number of wolves in the area remained low until the latter part of 1985. During the concluding months of that year, the researchers estimated that there were 15-20 wolves living within Glacier National Park boundaries (Steinhart 1995). Up until 1986, the recovering wolf population denned within Canadian borders. However, in 1986, the Magic Pack denned and bore pups inside Glacier National Park. This advent marked the first known wolf reproduction in the state of Montana in over 50 years (Steinhart 1995). Wolf studies intensified as the group of researchers (Ream, Boyd, and Fairchild) attempted to track, trap, and radio collar wolves.

In 1987, the Magic Pack split into 2 smaller packs that Boyd and Ream renamed the Camas and Sage Creek packs. In 1989, the Camas pack produced a litter of pups inside a hollow log. None of the pups survived.

During this same time, the Pleasant Valley Pack formed near Marion, Montana (Bass 1992). In early 1989, 2 mated wolves bore 3 pups in April. One of the wolves attempted to enter a sheep pen, and was shot and killed. Because of cattle depredation problems, the United States Fish and Wildlife Service decided to relocate the pack. Because of the relocation, the 2 remaining pups starved. The adult male was caught and killed in a trap. The female migrated into the Ninemile drainage in Montana, found a mate and in the spring of 1990, bore a litter of 6 pups. By July the female was shot to death. Soon after the death of their mother, the pups’ father was hit and killed by a car. The 6 pups were left to fend for themselves (Steinhart 1995).

Fortunately for the pups, the pasture where their parents decided to raise them near was part of the Thistead Ranch. Long time ranchers, the Thistead brothers were not especially thrilled that a pack of predators chose to live in their backyard. Yet they were tolerant. Once they learned the pups were orphans, the Thistead brothers became interested. They spent hours watching and videotaping the wolves while they played in the pasture. A Fish and Wildlife Biologist, Mike Jimenez, started bringing the pups road-killed carcasses in hopes that they would survive and learn to hunt without parental guidance.

After federal biologists trapped and radio-collared 2 of the wolves, they became more "wary and nocturnal" (Bass 1991:63). Eventually the pups left the pasture, and Jimenez found evidence that they made a kill on their own. Soon afterwards, researchers discovered traces of blood in a scent mark, indicating a female in heat (Bass 1991). Often before a pack settles in for the spring, digs a den, and raises pups, the entire group will go on a long distance end-of-winter rendezvous. In March of 1991, the orphaned pups took a similar trip. Although just 2 weeks previously the young wolves passed within very close range of a sickened cow and did not attempt to kill it, during this rendezvous, the wolves entered a pasture in Dixon, Montana and killed two 450-pound steers (Bass 1991).

Almost immediately, the Animal Damage Control, a United States government service responsible for predator control, helicoptered to where the wolves were staying and shot them with tranquilizers, intending to retain them in captivity until further decisions were reached. One male wolf, although under the sedating effect of the tranquilizer, managed to escape. The captive pups, 1 male, 1 pregnant female, and another female were released in Glacier National Park after 8 days in captivity (Bass 1991). Once they were free, the pups raced off in different directions. Shortly after her release, the radio collar signals for the pregnant female disappeared. The male was shot and killed by ranchers within a few months. The other female entered another pasture and killed some lambs. She was captured for a second time and released into the care of Wolf Haven, a zoo within which she will spend the rest of her life (Bass 1991).

In spite of these setbacks, by July 1991 a new lone female split from a pack in Glacier National Park and wandered south into the Ninemile Valley. She quickly located another wolf, a big, gray, lone male. Together, these 2 wolves mark the beginning of a wave of naturally recolonizing wolves. Although wolves continue to migrate south into the United States from Canada, the future of naturally recolonizing wolves still hangs on a thin strand of human tolerance.

The importance of these wolves to the reintroduction process is immense. Having wolves in Montana gave officials a chance to show how swiftly and decisively they could react to livestock depredation. The Ninemile wolves also helped lead some wolf opponents toward favoring the reintroductions. When wolves migrate from Canada on their own, they are fully protected by the stringent requirements of the ESA (Endangered Species Act 1973). Reintroducing wolves would make management much more lax, since under an amendment to the ESA, reintroduced populations can be treated as experimental populations ESA (Endangered Species Act 1973). Experimental populations of animals are not subject to the strict protection normally afforded endangered species by the ESA. The reintroduction of wolves under an experimental population clause effectively reduces protection for naturally recolonizing wolves, because it is nearly impossible to differentiate between reintroduced and naturally recolonizing wolves. The "experimental" designation is important to the discussion of wolf reintroduction because it allows the government greater flexibility in dealing with problem wolves ESA (Endangered Species Act 1973).

The movement to reintroduce wolves created a saga just as long and rocky as that of the recolonizing wolves. Neither the proponents nor for the opponents had an easy battle for wolf reintroduction..