Female Wolf, Pups May Be Moved Back To Yellowstone

Biologists are considering the advantages and disadvantages of moving a female wolf and her pups back to Yellowstone National Park.

“If we go ahead and move them, it could turn out great or it could turn out real crummy,” said U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service biologist Ed Bangs.

“It’s a risky business for the wolves and for us.”

The uncertain future of the litter, the first born under the federal program to return wolves to Yellowstone, is the fault of whoever killed the mate of the female wolf, Bangs said.

“Everybody’s pretty indignant about having to try to save the pups because someone killed their father,” Bangs said. “I wish I didn’t have to make this decision, but whoever killed that male has forced us into it.”

The two adult wolves were among 14 captured in Canada and let loose in Yellowstone. They wandered some 40 miles east of Yellowstone over the Beartooth Plateau.

Then the male wolf was apparently killed illegally.

Biologists have been bringing elk haunches and deer carcasses to the female wolf, who gave birth to at least seven pups under a spruce tree on private land near Red Lodge about two weeks ago. She did not dig a den.

Federal biologists are now considering moving the female and her litter back to a pen in the Lamar Valley, where the wolves were acclimated to Yellowstone. Another temporary captive period would allow biologists to keep a close eye on the pups, Bangs said.

The female’s breeding success makes her too valuable to the wolf recovery project to lose, he said.

Biologists are working out the logistics of capturing and moving the wolves.