Collar Of The Wild Captured Gray Wolves Face Many Indignities Before Release

The U.S. government’s wolf restoration plan may benefit the species overall, but it’s hardly a howling good time for the animals involved.

Captivity begins violently for every wolf, whether it is caught by the neck in a wire snare or chased down by a helicopter carrying marksmen with tranquilizer-dart guns.

It wakes up in a 2-by-3-by-4-foot metal box - home for the animal until it reaches its destination in Yellowstone National Park or central Idaho.

Saturday afternoon, four wolves being held at Switzer Provincial Park near Jasper, Alberta, curled up tightly in their boxes, which had been lined with straw and placed inside 6-by-6-by-12-foot chain-link cages, one box per cage.

The doors to their boxes were open, leaving the wolves free to explore their cages, but the animals rarely took advantage of the opportunity.

Indeed, the wolves hardly moved at all, their breath frosting their black and gray fur in the subfreezing air, their amber eyes keeping a steady, impassive watch on the comings and goings of attendants.

There was no howling. The wolves stayed silent, drawing themselves up against the back of their boxes as if trying to disappear. Chunks of road-killed elk placed at their doorsteps went uneaten.

National Park Service veterinarian Mark Johnson said the wolves seemed healthy but not too happy, obviously stressed from being confined and having humans walk by several feet away.

“What’s far away for us is extremely close for the animal,” Johnson said.

There will be more shots of tranquilizer for each wolf as veterinarians check its health and treat it for lice and tapeworms.

There will be a jostling ride in a cargo plane, with stops for inspection by customs agents on both sides of the border.

And finally there will be the release, far from the wolf’s home territory, in some cases stripped from the sophisticated social structure of its pack.

Such indignities give Renee Askins pause for thought.

As director of the Wolf Fund, she’s been pushing for reintroduction of wolves to Yellowstone for years. But at the same time, she says she worries about the welfare of the animals involved.

She says the federal agencies have taken impressive precautions to avoid stressing the wolves more than necessary.

It also helps, she says, to consider the likely fate of these wolves if they hadn’t been captured alive.

This part of Alberta is a big wolf-hunting and trapping area, so the captured wolves will have a far better chance at living longer once they’re south of the border.

“One way to look at it is we’re saving 30 wolves,” she said.

“These are 30 wolves that not only are going to live, but live mighty well.”

MEMO: 1. This sidebar ran with story: RIGHT OFF THE GRILL The wolves will be living in pens and eating tenderized food during their first weeks in Yellowstone. Rangers have been stockpiling road kill, mostly deer and elk.