November 2, 2009, 3:19 pm
Yellowstone National Park's scientific research on wolves got
caught in the crossfire of Montana's inaugural wolf season when
hunters killed two collared wolves just north of the park earlier
this month.
As the smoke has cleared, federal wolf officials are at odds
over the effect of the shootings and Montana's game managers are
re-examining how it will conduct its next wolf season - if there is
one. Environmental groups have appealed Montana and Idaho's wolf
hunting seasons in federal court.
The two collared wolves shot were a mother, 527F, and daughter,
716F. They were part of the 10-member Cottonwood pack, which ranged
over the northern border of Yellowstone into the Absaroka-Beartooth
Wilderness and became legal game. Two other pack members, the alpha
male and a 5-month-old pup, were also shot.
527F, the Cottonwood pack's alpha female, had been collared for
five years, since she was 2, providing a lengthy stream of data for
Yellowstone's study of the lifetime reproductive success of
breeding females, said Doug Smith, Yellowstone's wolf biologist. At
age 7, she was long-lived compared with wolf populations outside
the park, which are subject to control measures and typically die
at age 2 or 3.
Yellowstone's studies are unique because they track an unhunted
population of wolves, allowing researchers to examine the natural
life cycle of wolves unaffected by human predation, their leading
cause of death outside areas like Yellowstone, Smith said.
"Most wolves die outside of protected places," he said.
Another reason the Cottonwood pack was of interest to
researchers is that it occupied an area that has seen a high pack
turnover ratio - four packs in 12 years. Researchers are trying to
determine why.
With the loss of the pack's only two collared wolves, biologists
also lose contact with the rest of the pack, so their fate is
unknown. Yellowstone's Wolf Project tries to collar at least one
wolf in every pack to track them.
The loss of two collared wolves out of a park population of more
than 120 wolves in 12 packs was deemed insignificant by Ed Bangs,
wolf recovery coordinator for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service.
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