** January 2012 ** 


      We weren't planning a second trip to Yellowstone this year, but when fall arrived, we couldn't stay away - we missed the Park. So we hurriedly put together a long weekend before all the roads closed for the season and hoped the weather would be good enough for us to get around. The first weekend in November did not disappoint us.
     We sank into the solitude of a peaceful landscape entering its next season. Even the wildlife seemed to disappear at times. We did have some good wolf watching, but I was hoping to see 641M, the alpha male of the Agate Pack and the brother of my collared wolf, 640F, who dispersed from the Mollies in 2010. In June 2011 640F was found traveling with an uncollared male and became part of the Poison Creek Pack. Unfortunately, this pack was involved in several livestock depredations and was removed in August. So I have lost my second wolf, and for me, 641M was a last link to 640F. I worried that if she left the Park, she would find trouble, and she did. But I am happy that she also found a mate and started her own pack.
     Yellowstone is well into winter now, and although the temperature has dropped to minus 30, snowfall has been less than normal. Each year around the end of December, the Mollie Pack travels from their territory in the Pelican Valley near Lake Yellowstone to Lamar Valley and stays for a week or two. They are a large pack (18-19 wolves now) of big wolves, and as the Wolf Project leader Doug Smith says, they "throw their weight around." This has lead to conflicts between the Mollies and other packs in the northern range of the Park and this year the deaths of two Agates, 641M and his brother, 586M, (who were originally Mollie wolves) and Medium Gray of the Blacktail Pack. The Mollies have been in Lamar Valley a month now. There are more elk in the valley and the Mollies' alpha female is without a mate, so they may be staying while she looks for a new alpha male. The Lamar Canyon Pack seems to be doing well - and managing to avoid the Mollies - as do the Canyons, who have been seen near Mammoth. Breeding season is about to begin and who knows what that will bring.

Christine Baleshta - January 2012