My First Wolf Sighting

      WHEN I FINISHED up in Big Bend in early May 1995 and began driving north toward Yellowstone, my goal for the coming summer was to see at least one of the newly released wolves. I knew the wolves brought down to the park had been captured in areas of intensive wolf hunting and trapping. Mortality there due to humans was often 40 percent annually. That meant they had good reason to be afraid of people and would want to avoid them. I hoped that if I did a lot of backcountry hiking I might get lucky and get a glimpse of a wolf. I would be living again at Tower Junction, a few miles from where the Crystal Creek wolves had been released. That would give me a better opportunity of seeing one of them.

      I reached the park’s Northeast Entrance on the evening of May 12 and drove west toward Lamar Valley. When I got there, I saw Bob Landis, the wildlife documentary filmmaker I had known in Denali, parked on the side of the road. He told me he had been filming the six Crystal Creek wolves, but they had slipped into the trees just before I arrived. I had missed them by minutes. I looked for them anyway, then, feeling discouraged, I drove on to Tower and moved into my trailer, thinking I had missed my one chance of seeing wolves that year.

      I got up early the next morning and drove the ten miles east to Lamar. When I arrived at around 6:00 a.m., all the Crystal wolves were in plain sight about a half mile south of the road. I saw the black alpha male, the whitish alpha female, and their four young sons, now about a year old. The smallest wolf in the pack, the gray yearling, stood out, his dull fur in stark contrast to the sleek coats of his three bigger black brothers. My goal had been to see one wolf that summer and, on my first full day back in the park, I was watching six wolves roaming Lamar Valley.

      As I observed the pack, several people pulled over and asked what I was looking at. I had the same spotting scope I had used to view the East Fork pack in Denali, and I let those visitors look through it at the distant wolves. When they saw the wolves, their faces shone with joy and excitement. More people stopped, and I helped them all see the wolves. Most of them commented on the beauty of the alpha female, the majestic appearance of the huge alpha male, and the gorgeous coats of the three black yearlings. No one said anything about the little gray, wolf 8.

      The alpha female, wolf 5, marked an old elk carcass site with a squat urination and scratched the ground with her hind legs. As she walked off, the alpha male, wolf 4, came along and did a raised-leg urination over her scent mark, then scratched the site with both hind legs. Wolves have scent glands between their toe pads, so the scratching enhances the marking of their territory. Any other wolves coming along would understand that an alpha pair had marked this site. The Crystal wolves were claiming Lamar Valley as their own.

      The female continued in the lead and the other five followed. As I was soon to learn, it is the alpha female who makes most of the decisions for the pack, such as choosing the direction of travel, and the rest of the wolves, including the alpha male, follow. The pack approached a big bison herd. Several of the bison glanced at the approaching wolves but showed no concern. Mature bull bison can weigh up to 2,000 pounds, and cows get up to 1,000 pounds. Since the average weight of adult wolves is around 100 pounds, bison are ten to twenty times heavier. Most of the bison did not even bother to stop grazing. The alphas, for their part, showed no interest in the bison and moved on.

      I later realized there were no bison where these wolves came from. In Alberta the Crystal wolves would have specialized in hunting elk and deer. When young pups start to accompany adults on hunts, they learn what prey animals to pursue by watching older pack members. In the alphas’ home country, dinner looked like deer and elk. Biologists call that the predator’s prey search image. As wolves travel, they search for animals that match what they think suitable prey looks like. For the Crystal alphas, the Yellowstone bison did not yet fit that image.

      Unlike their parents, the four yearlings were curious about this new species, and they began following a big bull that was walking toward the herd. Soon the lead black yearling got to within fifteen yards of him. The huge bison stopped and looked back at the approaching wolves. All four yearlings paused, then three of them, including the little gray, continued forward. The lone bull moved on and soon joined the other bison. As the three yearlings trotted toward the herd, several bison looked up. The brothers stopped and milled around, hesitant to get any closer now that many of the bison were staring at them. The alpha pair were intently watching the yearlings and the herd. At that moment, the bison charged. Clearly intimidated, all four young wolves spun around and ran back toward their parents.

      The pack regrouped and continued on its way. The alphas soon spotted a herd of about 150 elk, a perfect match for their prey search image. A cow elk might weigh up to 500 pounds and a big bull as much as 700 pounds. That is much bigger than a wolf, but a more reasonable size for a pack to target than a bison. When the elk ran off, the wolves did not give chase. Instead they advanced slowly. The elk stopped and looked back at the pack, then moved toward the wolves. Since wolves had been back in the park for only about six weeks, these elk were probably still trying to figure out how dangerous they were and how to react to them.

      The herd got to within fifty yards of the pack. At that point the elk must have decided that the wolves were a threat, and they began to run again. That set off two of the black year-lings. They chased the herd, but only at a third of their top speed. The rest of the pack stayed where they were and watched. The herd split in two, and now just one yearling was left in the chase. When the elk stopped, he stopped. He stared at the subgroup he had decided to follow, and they stared back at him. I looked back at the alphas. They were still just watching. I got the impression they were evaluating the condition of the elk and had not seen any slow individuals or any that showed signs of weakness that might enable the pack to catch and kill one.

      As I accumulated more sightings of wolves interacting with elk, I saw that an average healthy elk can easily outrun pursuing wolves. The top sprinting speed of an elk is around forty-five miles an hour while the maximum for a wolf is about thirty-five miles an hour. To put that in perspective, Olympic champion Usain Bolt runs a 100-meter race at an average of twenty-three miles an hour. In a sprint with a wolf and elk, he would come in last. An experienced older wolf does not waste energy chasing elk that are in good condition because the odds of killing one are too low. The alphas moved on and the yearlings rejoined the pack. I soon lost the wolves in a forest.

      I learned a lesson that morning. Sunrise at that time of year was around 5:45 a.m., but there was enough light to see wolves by 5:15 a.m. I had arrived at the parking lot at 6:00 a.m. and had missed forty-five minutes of potential wolf sightings. From then on, I vowed to get up earlier, about 4:00 a.m., so I would have time to eat, get ready, then drive the fifteen minutes from Tower to Lamar to arrive by first light. I did not want to miss anything due to sleeping in.

      I did not see wolves the next three mornings, but on the evening of May 16, I spotted a grizzly and a bald eagle as I was scanning for the pack. A herd of elk were staring at a spot in a meadow with concern. I swung my scope in that direction and watched that site. A black yearling, who had been hidden to me, eventually got up there. That sighting taught me to pay attention to prey animals when they are all looking in the same direction.

      That evening I saw three species that