Wondering About Wolves: An AudioPost

I want to tell you a story of wondering about wolves.

One day Mary, our friend Leo, and I follow a snow-covered service road to the edge of Yellowstone’s Blacktail Deer Plateau. Our plan—if you can call it that—is to walk as far as we want onto the plateau. Little snow has fallen in the last couple of cold weeks so our hiking boots crunch on shallow snow as we proceed.

Within a hundred yards, Leo finds the tracks of a single wolf; they look fresh... To listen to the rest:

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This reading based on a chapter of the best selling Deep into Yellowstone.

Photo Credits:

Photo of wolf tracks by Rick Lamplugh

Rick Lamplugh writes, photographs, and speaks to protect wildlife and wild lands.

His bestselling In the Temple of Wolves; its sequel, Deep into Yellowstone; and its prequel, The Wilds of Aging are available signed. His books are also available unsigned or as eBook or audiobook on Amazon.

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An Incredible Wolf Journey (Part 2): An Audio Post

In Part 1 I described how Wolf 341F left her birth pack, travelled through Montana, Wyoming, Idaho, and Utah and finally entered Colorado in 2009. She was only the second confirmed wolf to reach Colorado since the Yellowstone reintroduction fourteen years earlier. 

By the time 341F reached Colorado she showed her skill at knowing when, where, and how to cross life-threatening roads as she continued deeper into the state. Eventually, above Interstate 70, she turned north into the wildlife-rich Rocky Mountains...

To listen to the rest of her story:

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Rick Lamplugh writes and photographs to protect wildlife and wild lands.

His bestselling In the Temple of Wolves; its sequel, Deep into Yellowstone; and its prequel, The Wilds of Aging are available signed. 

His books are also available unsigned or as eBook or audiobook on Amazon.

Wolf pictured is Oregon wolf, OR-2, photo by ODFW. I found no useable images of 341F alive, but she looked like OR-2.

An Incredible Wolf Journey (Part 1): An AudioPost

in Part 1 of this special two-part AudioPost, I want to tell you about an incredible wolf journey.

When wolves were reintroduced into Yellowstone in the mid-90s, they were expected to leave the park and repopulate other areas. And they did, traveling in many directions. Two wolves came together just north of the park in 2000 to form the Mill Creek Pack. By 2007 that pack had three adults and five pups. One of those pups was a female who, though she started her life in Montana, would end her life—after an incredible journey—far from her birthplace and family.

To listen to her story:

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Rick Lamplugh writes and photographs to protect wildlife and wild lands.

His bestselling In the Temple of Wolves; its sequel, Deep into Yellowstone; and its prequel, The Wilds of Aging are available signed. 

His books are also available unsigned or as eBook or audiobook on Amazon.

Wolf pictured is Oregon wolf, OR-2, photo by ODFW. I found no useable images of 341F alive, but she looked like OR-2.

PART 1: The Battle to Bring Wolves Back to Colorado

At one time, wolves roamed 41 of the Lower 48 states. It took just a couple hundred years to exterminate them in 95 percent of their range. In Colorado they were killed off by the mid 1940s. Now two organizations want to see wolves reintroduced into Colorado—the only Rocky Mountains state without wolves. In an innovative approach, the organizations are petitioning voters to place an initiative on the ballot. The initiative would allow voters—instead of unwelcoming state wildlife managers—to decide if wolves should return. Predictably, an anti-reintroduction organization has formed and wants to block any reintroduction. 

Wildlife ecologist Mike Phillips is advising the two pro-reintroduction groups, Rocky Mountain Wolf Project and Rocky Mountain Wolf Action Fund. Phillips was the leader of the project to reintroduce wolves into Yellowstone. 

Proponents of reintroduction must obtain 200,000 signatures to place the initiative on the November 2020 ballot. If Initiative 107 reaches the ballot, it will ask voters to approve a law that requires the Colorado Parks and Wildlife Commission to create a plan—using statewide hearings and the best available science—to reintroduce wolves on public lands west of the Continental Divide by the end of 2023. The commission would not be able to impose any land, water, or resource restrictions on private landowners to further the plan. The commission must fairly compensate owners for livestock lost to wolves. 

With wolves now in Montana, Wyoming, Idaho, New Mexico, and Arizona, dispersing wolves have reached Colorado. Some have ended up dead: poisoned, hit by a car, and shot by a hunter claiming he thought he shot a coyote. Just recently a collared male last tracked near Yellowstone showed up in Colorado’s rural Jackson County.

With dispersers arriving, the Colorado situation is similar to the one in Yellowstone before reintroduction. Wolves had dispersed from Canada and taken up residence in northern Montana. In 1994 Montana had 50-60 wolves and they might have dispersed to Yellowstone eventually. In 1995 and 1996 sixty-six Canadian wolves were reintroduced into Yellowstone and central Idaho. Today more than 1500 wolves roam Montana, Wyoming, and Idaho. Though the reintroduction succeeded, many people opposed it.

And plenty of opposition exists today to reintroducing wolves into Colorado. In January of 2016 the Colorado Parks and Wildlife Commission issued a resolution opposing “the intentional release of any wolves into Colorado” because of conflicts with the livestock industry and big game management. No surprise there. The commission described both ranching and hunting as important to the state’s economy. A recent report by Jason Blevins in the Colorado Sun states that elk and mule deer hunting brings in $919 million to the state, especially in rural areas.

Of course, the anti-wolf Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation has weighed in against reintroduction. On their website, RMEF claims, among other things, that reintroduction “would trigger the potential for real issues” because Colorado is smaller than other wolf states and has more humans crammed into it. 

Then there’s the newly formed Colorado Stop the Wolf Coalition. Their website brims with photos of bloody, ravaged livestock. They feature videos that present many “dangers” of bringing wolves back. They are sponsoring their own petition because “extreme activist groups want to force introduction of destructive non-native wolves onto public lands in Colorado.”

In this multi-part series, I will explore this battle to bring wolves back to Colorado. I will dig into the reasons presented by the RMEF and the Colorado Stop the Wolf Coalition against reintroduction. Are they fact or fiction?

Award-winning Indie author Rick Lamplugh writes, speaks, and photographs to protect wildlife and wild lands. His bestselling In the Temple of Wolves and the award-winning sequel, Deep into Yellowstone, are available signed from Rick or unsigned on Amazon.

Rick's new book, The Wilds of Aging, is the prequel to In the Temple of Wolves and is available signed or on Amazon.

Wolf photo by Rick Lamplugh

The Troubled Wolves of Isle Royale

Isle Royale is a small, remote island in Michigan’s Lake Superior and part of Isle Royale National Park. According to the US Census Bureau, the island has no permanent human population. But as of this May, 14 wolves call it home. Twelve were recently transported there; two are survivors of the island’s original population.

The wolves’ main meal, moose, have lived on the island since they naturally migrated there in the early 1900s and found a lot of food. Wolves, of their own accord, first walked to the island from the mainland—across 15 miles of frozen lake—in 1948, and they too found food: moose. Scientists began studying the interaction of wolves and moose in 1958. This longest predator-prey study in the world provides a lot of evidence of the importance of wolves to the ecology of the island.

While wolves have served as effective predators for decades, human-caused warming temperatures have compromised their only route to and from the island. Historically, ice bridges formed on Lake Superior and connected the island to the mainland for more than 50 days a year, according to the National Parks Conservation Association (NPCA). This gave wolves the time and a way to reach the island. But over the last 20 warmer years, these bridges have been far less common. That shut the door to new wolves, stranded the island’s wolf population, and led to inbreeding, which resulted in rib and spinal deformities. Scientists say that inbred populations don’t produce viable offspring and this leads to collapse.

Maintaining enough wolves to hunt moose is essential—but difficult. The wolf population peaked at 50 in 1980 and crashed to 14 just two years later. The crash, according to the National Park Service (NPS), was caused by canine parvovirus, which came to the island via a dog. (Dogs, except service dogs, are no longer allowed on the island.) The wolf population recovered somewhat and then fell to its 2018 low of only two wolves, both related. 

With so few wolves, NPCA warns, the nearly 1,500 moose at Isle Royale could double in population over the next several years and devastate the island’s vegetation.

After extensive environmental analysis and input from scientists and the public, NPS released its Isle Royale wolf management plan. The plan was signed by then NPS Midwest Regional Director Cam Sholly. He is now the superintendent at Yellowstone National Park. The plan calls for the reintroduction of 20-30 wolves over a three-to-five-year period, beginning in 2018. The long-term average of the number of wolves on the island is 22.

Location of island wolves April 2019

But relocating wolves to Isle Royale may only be a stopgap solution, according to a recent study. Researchers found that genetic rescue—introducing new genes to increase a population’s genetic diversity—can reduce inbreeding. But Rolf Peterson, a research professor at Michigan Technological University and a member of the study’s research team, said to the Capital News Service of this rescue, “It might be 20 years, but it’s all temporary.”

The key is Lake Superior’s freezing and forming ice bridges. If climate change keeps new wolves from reaching the island, they may need to be transported there periodically. Without enough of these essential predators taking the old, young, and ill, moose will ravage the island’s forest and eventually begin to die of starvation.

Photo by Jim Peaco of NPS of wolf released on Isle Royale in October 2018

Award-winning Indie author Rick Lamplugh writes, speaks, and photographs to protect wildlife and wild lands. His bestselling In the Temple of Wolves and the award-winning sequel, Deep into Yellowstone, are available signed from Rick or unsigned on Amazon.

Rick's new book, The Wilds of Aging, is the prequel to In the Temple of Wolves and is available signed or on Amazon.