Wolves | Leslie Patten Books: Wild Places, Sacred Spaces

Cougars and Wolves-A puzzle

Posted on March 4, 2013 by Leslie

Finally time to post a cougar entry. Days have been warm, so when we’ve had snow, it melts off quickly. But I’ve had two interesting cougar tracking experiences.

Several days after a very nice snow I ventured out to an area where I’ve seen cat tracks many times. Its a landscape full of boulders with low cliffs easily passable for humans–perfect cougar tracking. I headed straight for some high cliffs where I found cougar tracks last year, and lo and behold, there were fresh puma tracks. Because the terrain is fairly easy, I was able to follow these tracks for over an hour, mostly up, down and over boulders. A coyote occasionally mirrored this cougars’ trail.

Left Hind

Nice front print

Right front (Rt.) Left hind over front foot (lt) cougar

Moving with an easy gait, occasionally jumping high up on a boulder or down into a gully (where I had to go around. Following a cougar isn’t easy), the cougar stopped on a rock at an overlook to size up the terrain. All this indicated that this cougar was relaxed.

I’d seen wolf tracks when I began early on, but not coinciding with my cougars tracks. Yet suddenly the wolf pack’s tracks appeared atop a ridge, fresh as the cougars’. The wolves and the cougar headed down a narrow path to a ravine below, where I lost the cougar tracks in an array of wolf tracks. I searched everywhere but the plethora of canine tracks obscured all other sign. What were those wolves doing? There was no sign of a kill in the area. Usually Koda is pretty good at finding carcasses when I can’t. I even went back on another day, combing the area for a kill, but nothing.

Cougar paw

Anesthesized cougar teeth

A few days ago I hiked up the mountain behind my home. A series of terraces stair steps up the mountain side. It’s a north facing wooded area and some of the shelfs are quite steep. I climbed fairly high when I came across a fresh cougar track. The cat scrambled to the next level, the final mesa before the mountainside turns to scree. It’s an area full of large boulders. The cougar easily and deftly walked up the slope toward a giant granite boulder which she jumped on top of. Yet what caught my attention were the wolf tracks that ran right in front of the boulder and over the cougar tracks–same freshness. Here again were cat and canine tracks together.

Again losing the cat tracks, I followed the wolf tracks back to the woods by my house. There I found not only cougar and wolf tracks, but a deer kill already picked over by birds, probably from the night before. Did the cougar kill the deer, only to be driven off by the wolves?

So, this leaves me with more questions than answers. Do wolves keep a pretty good bead on cougars? Cougar kills are easy food for other predators and that’s why they take time to cover their kills. But what were those wolves doing around that cougar on my first tracking excursion? What kind of competition are those wolves presenting to that cougar? And it also lead me to think about people who hunt cougars with dogs. Eight dogs have been killed by wolves in Montana this year while hunting cougars. Are those dogs more susceptible to being caught and killed by wolves because they are following cougars? There have been a series of dogs lost in Sunlight over the years, some for a few weeks, yet all the lost dogs have turned up, not killed by wolves. Yet a few years ago a hound hunting cougars was killed by the wolf pack.

I am curious about the relationship between cougars and wolves, two top predators competing for similar prey.

Filed under: Cougars | Tagged: Cougars, Wolves | 3 Comments »

The Cry Heard Around the World

Posted on December 14, 2012 by Leslie

With wolf hunts now taking place in all three states around Yellowstone, new issues are coming up. Although Montana and Idaho had a hunt last year, this fall is Wyoming’s first wolf hunt.

At least 10 collared Yellowstone Park and Grand Teton wolves have been killed in this years’ hunt, and more than half of them occurred in Wyoming. The last collared wolf killed was taken in my area, hunt area 2, and she was the eighth wolf and so closed the zone. And this wolf, wolf 832F (F for female), dubbed ‘o6 by Park wolf watchers, was perhaps the most famous wolf in the world, and most loved. She’d been highly visible in the Lamar Valley since she was born in 2006, and was the alpha female of her pack.

’06 this summer hightails it away from Molly Pack

Last spring on a May morning I went to the Lamar and watched her with her son try and scare a grizzly off a dead bison. On the other side of the grizzly were two wolves of Molly’s Pack, a formidable pack in the Park that had been threatening to kill 06’s pups. Another wolf from the Lamar Pack, 754, was shot in my hunt zone in November. At least 2 collared wolves from Grand Teton have been shot, and there’s speculation that as many as 13 uncollared from GT have been taken in the hunt.

’06’s death has been highly publicized all around the world, from PRI to European newspapers. People from all over the world watched and knew ’06. In response to public opinion, Montana, who is about to begin their first wolf trapping season, has created a buffer zone around the Park’s northern border. Just for this hunt/trap season only. Next year is a different story perhaps. Although Idaho’s wolf hunting and trapping season is almost endless, the expansive Madison Valley sits in the way of many wolves migrating from the Park in that direction.

’06 swims the Lamar river, emerges onto the road right in front of tourists.

Wyoming is another story. Most of the Park is in WY, as is all of Grand Teton. 85% of the state has been approved by the Obama administration as a predator zone which means shoot on sight (or trap, or bait, or whatever) anytime, anywhere. So the managed hunt zone, called the Trophy Zone, is essentially the ‘buffer’ zone around the Park. With the loss of so many study wolves, is the era of Park research over? And with the hoards of wolf watchers habituating these wolves to a benign human presence, is the era of wolf watching in the Park about to change? Will it be harder to see wolves in the Park? And will that bring in less visitors? And should Wyoming manage their ‘buffer zone’ around the Park with Park research in mind?

I can say that my zone, hunt zone 2, had the highest quota of all the zones. If you take zone 2 and 3 together, they make up the entire Absaroka eastern side of YNP, with a quota of 16 out of 52 wolves. This is a rich area for genetic exchange, mostly Shoshone designated wilderness area, and wolves travel frequently in and out of the Park in this area following their prime food, elk. Those two areas alone, which are a prime buffer zone, make up 1/3 of the state’s quota for 2012!

Hopefully ’06’s death will bring some good and highlight what is wrong with the hunts the way they are managed now.

First, the quotas of 100 wolves and 10 breeding pairs per state was set a long time ago when no one knew how wolves would adapt to the Rocky Mountains. Although Montana is setting their own quota at 400, Idaho which has prime territory and over 70% federal lands, is in a frenzy to eliminate wolves, hunting and trapping 10 months of the year with no quotas. Wyoming, which has few wolves outside the Park, before the hunt it was around 230, is not only mostly predator status, but is also eyeing that 100 mark as their quota. These quotas are simply ridiculously low for the amount of good habitat and prey. Wyoming in many areas is trying to reduce their elk counts by giving hunters numerous tags, but at the same time reducing the predator that could do that job in a better, more effective and selective manner.

This wolf, from my valley, was by the road two years ago. With the hunts you will no longer see wolves so easily

Second, trapping is simply anathema to the 21st century. It is cruel and poses dangers to not only other wildlife, but to pets. Pelts are sold mostly to the Chinese market, which enrages me more. This is what happened with our beaver and bison in the 19th century, when European demand had hunters and trappers eradicating our wildlife for hats and coats. Wildlife as a commodity is simply wrong, just as human trafficking is.

Third, until the predator status is changed so that all of Wyoming is designated trophy status, the Trophy zone around the Park needs to be changed. Quotas in sensitive areas right around the Park need to be decreased, hunt zones readjusted, and hunt times changed for each area. Instead of hunting the entire trophy zone Sept or October through December, zones near the Park need to close earlier as the elk begin to come down from the high country and the Park wolves follow. Once Wyoming predator status is eliminated, wolf hunts should take place only in areas where there are conflicts with ranchers, not in areas with no conflict and lots of wilderness.

Finally, personally I disagree with hunting predators–wolves, coyotes, foxes, cougars, bears, martens, you name it. Being able to shoot a predator that is eating your sheep or cattle is one thing, hunting them for sport is another. On the other hand, just seeing a wolf or coyote passing your property doesn’t mean they’re going to cause trouble; and ranchers who are far-sighted and conscious are trying new methods for protecting their flocks and herds. Yet that being said, for now the delisting not only calls for a hunt, but in the short run of the next ten years, it may be the only way to quiet the loud and contentious opposition to wolves. Let’s just not undo all the good hard work that brought them here over these last 15 years.

If you want to comment and have your voice heard on the wolf situation in Wyoming, here is a link. Wyoming wolf hunt

Two wolves side trot down the road

Filed under: Wolf | Tagged: Grand Teton National Park, Lamar wolf pack, montana wolf hunt, nature, Wolf, Wolf '06, Wolf 832F, Wolves, Wyoming wolf hunt, Yellowstone National Park | 3 Comments »

A farewell to a wonderfully curious wolf pup of the Hoodoo Pack

Posted on October 9, 2012 by Leslie

I have been randomly calling the Wyoming Mortality Hot Line or going to the online link to find out how many wolves have been killed (let’s not call it by the euphemism ‘harvested’). I am especially interested in my Area (area 1). As of today, 3 of the quota of 8 have been taken.

Today, I just found out that one of those wolves was the yearling pup I’ve seen many times over the last year.

Yearling pup this spring

He was born a year ago spring. I first saw him with his mom last fall. She is a black alpha female (not sure if she’s still around) and she was harassing a cow as her pup tried to help. The cow didn’t run, but just kept turning around and chasing her down. Finally she gave up. If prey don’t give chase, wolves usually get confused. They can too easily get kicked and hurt by confronting large prey from in front.

The pair seemed inseparable and the next time I saw the pup was around January. He was with his mom loping up a nearby ridgeline. Mom turned, looked, and sprinted off. But the yearling was curious and watched me for awhile. We shared a moment from afar on that cold winter early morning.

The last time I saw him was this spring. I was hiking down a draw, following a cougar track. Koda lagged behind. I was above a creek on a thin deer trail when I spied something odd behind a tree about 20′ ahead. I stopped and his grey head peeked out. He’d been curious, watching Koda and I. When he saw that I noticed him, he ran off to join his mom in the meadow a few hundred yards away. I sprinted up beyond the trees to catch a glimpse again of the Alpha female. (I was able to snap the photo below of her). She eyed me warily for a bit then took off with her pup.

Alpha female; mom of yearling pup killed this week

Last spring I went to a WY G&F information meeting about the hunt. It was clear that it would go through, starting this October 1. The quotas were already set, with my area having the largest. Immediately I knew that this curious youngster would be amongst the first to die. Wolves have been hunted by helicopters around here for years, but not by hunters on foot. Although these wolves were wary, they were not yet scared of humans. The opportunity I’ve had over these last seven years to see wolves over and over again fairly close (I’ve had at least three occasions where I’ve seen wolves 25′ away, eye to eye, both of us curious about one another), has come to a close. It will be better that way for the wolves. Within a year or two of these hunts, wolves will not be seen casually in these parts.

Predators by nature and design must be smart. They need to think and strategize. Wolves cooperate when they hunt and that takes smarts. Prey are given the gift of speed. They look, listen and run. But predators must be more cunning than that.

If you share a moment with one of these magnificent creatures, you realize how intelligent, how full of Life they are. They embody everything that is wild and free. When they look you in the eye, they see right through you, much deeper than you see into them. In the end, though I am saddened by the loss of these wolves in Sunlight, the hot button issues surrounding wolves is not really about wolves at all.

I am reading ‘Shadow Mountain’ by Renee Askins, one of the spearheaders of bringing wolves back to Yellowstone National Park. I highly recommend this engaging, personal and well-written book. I end this entry with a quote from Askins book and a fond farewell to that magnificent and curious pup who shared with me not only his inquisitive nature, but his wild and free spirit.

“It soon became clear that in most discussions wolves merely provided a pretext to talk about much deeper and more personal political views, invariably those having to do with control–control of land and control of animals. Who controlled the “rights” to the animals, who could kill the elk that the wolves would prey upon, who could kill the wolves that killed “too many” elk, who could control which prey species and which predators and where and when and how. In truth, all of it was a discussion about killing and control veiled in the professional shibboleth of “wildlife management.” Wildlife management is, of course, an oxymoron. Animals that are truly “wild” are, by definition, not managed. Yet I would discover…over the next several years a troubling trend toward complete control or manipulation of many “wildlife” populations even within national parks.

Alpha male of the Hoodoo pack

Filed under: Wolf | Tagged: Renee Askins, Shadow Mountain, Wolf, Wolves, wyoming wolf delisting plan, Wyoming wolf hunt | 3 Comments »

What does a wolf den look like?

Posted on June 13, 2012 by Leslie

A friend of mine stumbled upon a wolf den with pups while shed hunting a month ago. The pups were about four weeks old, he said. Apparently, his inadvertent presence caused the wolves to move their pups to another location, for although I put my trail camera on the den site.

I never saw any activity and only got this one photo of a male wolf returning to the area to investigate.

I waited a month to be sure that the pups were old enough to have left and inspected the site. What a feat of engineering. The den was on a hillside in a small drainage.

The den was essentially a tunnel with an entrance above and below. My dog is 90 pounds and he was big enough to crawl inside the tunnel entrances, but too big to enter the tunnel connector. Here he is for size at the lower entrance.

Koda for size

Although this site had been abandoned for several weeks with overgrown vegetation, it was perfectly clean inside and out. I looked around for bones. There were some deer bones but quite a ways down hill from the den site.

Upper entrance demonstrates cleanliness

I tried to shine a light as far down as I could, but the den tunnel made a right turn downhill and exited at this bottom hole.

View of lower entrance. Upper entrance is visible directly above

The chosen site was not near an animal trail. In fact, the trail made by the wolves going back and forth to the den was now overgrown. Yet I caught a wide variety of animals on my camera.

Of course, the supercilious coyote appeared several times, even spending a long time peeing nearby on a log. A young black bear ambled bye.

A blue grouse with chicks appeared;

Find her chick!

a cow elk explored the site; and a yet to be identified weasel-like animal that looks suspiciously like a wolverine–all these animals in just a few weeks visited this den site area.

How lucky we are to have such a wealth of animal life in this special place we call the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem.

Also Read:- Sacred Sites and Mountain Lions

Filed under: Wolf | Tagged: Greater yellowstone ecosystem, Wolf, wolf den, Wolves | 2 Comments »

More Cougars with some Wolves thrown in

Posted on May 26, 2012 by Leslie

I’ve said it before and I’ll write it again: animals present themselves to you, not the other way around. And for the last six months, cougars are what have been presenting themselves to me to learn about.

If you’ve been reading my blog, you’ve seen that cougars have been constantly coming into my awareness now since the winter. Last winter I tracked a cougar in the snows and found over 5 of her kill sites. Then the last several weeks I found some cougar scat on the edge of the little forest by me. A week later I found a fairly fresh kill site, just 25 feet from my trail camera. Too bad cougars don’t use trails. The kill site was just off-camera by a little bit.

Last week I hiked up a drainage located within a smallish draw. I climbed high, then worked my way horizontally around the draw, finally descending via a creek with snow-melt in it. As I was climbing to the ridgeline that was a rocky crescent, I pushed aside some brush and saw a large cave rock shelter.

Koda guards a cougar densite

Koda was ever anxious to run right in and stick his nose inside. I called him off. There might be something dangerous inside.

After determining all was quiet, I went to investigate. This had been a cougar den, and one used this year. I could tell from the smelly scat at the entrance. The sticks and duff had all been pushed consciously to the front, and at the farthest rear of the cave was a neat round bed. This was really exciting.

Den site of a cougar. Duff in front. Bed at back end (where it’s dark in photo)

I began pushing farther uphill towards the rocks, looking out for sign of kills along the way. Sure enough, there was a lot of evidence of deer predation here.

Rocky ridge I hiked to.

One thing I pondered was the lack of water. A small creek was running several drainages over with snowmelt, but all the other drainages were bone-dry. The canid dens I’ve seen are all close to a water source. I thought about cougars in the Southwest, a super-dry area, and wondered about their use of water, especially with kittens.

Eventually I worked my way over to the drainage with water.

Drainage with some water I followed and found lion tracks

Coming round a curve, I found a large cougar print in the mud. I understand that instead of following trails, like bears or wolves, cougars like to follow drainages. I wished I could have taken a cast of that.

I followed the drainage down until I came to a downed large tree . I went one way and Koda went around the tree on the opposite side. Above the creek, I was following a deer trail now and called the dog back to me. As he came across the creek, I noticed something move behind a tree about 25 feet ahead on the trail. It was grey. I peered to get a better look and there was the yearling wolf I’d caught on the trail camera just days before.

This curious yearling wolf was watching me from behind a tree.

She’d been curious, watching me. When she noticed I’d seen her, she bolted. I called the dog, who luckily was behind me, to a ‘heel’ and we moved ahead until we had a view of the hillside meadows. There was her collared mom. I kept the dog beside me, tried to take some photos while I walked out of the area, all the while we kept our eyes on each other. She’d move a bit away, then stop and eye me.

Female collared wolf. She’d move uphill, then stop to see where I was

I thought about how curious wolves are, and how these wolves, though cautious, are fairly used to people. Most of the time I see wolves around here, they prance ahead, then stop to watch; easy targets once hunting season on wolves will begin next fall. I fear these two wolves won’t live to see another spring.

I was still stoked from that morning for several days. What a lot of wonderful wildlife adventures. Then just a few days later, I walked at dusk to the mailbox. Cougar prints crossed the driveway, still damp from recent rains. Now I had my casts! A perfect week and a lot of cougar lessons besides.

Cast of cougar prints–right side is rear on top, front on bottom. Cougar was going at a fast trot. Left print is a direct register

Filed under: Cougars, Wolf | Tagged: cougar den, cougar prints, Cougars, wolf photos, Wolves | 2 Comments »

Wolves, cougars, and the little woods

Posted on May 20, 2012 by Leslie

There is so much wildlife activity in the little piece of woods and meadows next to my home that I don’t need to venture much farther than ‘around the block’. Sometimes just sitting on my front patio is enough.

Besides the nesting bluebirds and house wrens, the red-tailed hawk making its’ rounds, and the pair of Golden Eagles soaring above, there are morning and evening visits from does and bucks in velvet, and an occasional turkey.

But the unseen action is taking place when I’m sleeping. Now I’ve caught two different wolves on my trail camera set up in the woods. On the 2nd of May I clocked this black female passing south early morning.

Solitary female probably from the old Sunlight Pack that was killed off last year by another pack

And now on the 12th I caught another wolf, unknown, heading north almost at the same time in the morning.

first shot from trail camera

Yearling pup from the pack presently occupying the valley

Of course, coyote is always running through the woods so trail photos of him abound.

Coyote. Easy to tell wolf and coyote apart

Usually when I retrieve my trail camera I’m expecting to see dozens of only deer photos so I have been pleasantly surprised. Here’s a nice buck photo.

Lastly though, here’s the most unexpected. Last week Koda dragged me over to some strong smelling scat. It was a large pile on top of an older pile, definitely cat, and I mean big cat. The deer are still low and some must be having their fawns. Of course, this winter I spent tracking a cougar and understanding in greater depth their sign. Yet I was surprised to see that a cougar was this low and so close to the houses. Granted, the summer residents aren’t here yet, but there is the occasional activity still. I made a mental note of where the scat was–on the far side of the woods–but saw nothing else.

Then today while returning the chip to the trail camera, Koda got a sudden urge. I’ve learned to trust his instincts and smeller so I followed him. And not more than 50 feet off trail from my camera was a cat kill. The deer had already been consumed with just its legs left, but there was the tell-tale mound of the formerly covered carcass, the plucked fur, and another smelly scat on top of it all.

Cougars pluck their carcasses. Bears pull the skin back.

I found a jaw of a young deer, although the legs were too big to be a fawn, so maybe this deer had been a yearling. This is the first time I’ve seen cougar sign in the woods or a cougar kill so low. The crazy thing is those cougars are so stealthy that there were no tracks, and besides, my trail camera was almost right there and I didn’t get any photos. The cat, you see, didn’t use the game trail like the Canids and Ungulates do.

Telltale sign of where a cougar covered its’ kill. Plucked fur abounds.

Filed under: Cougars, Wolf | Tagged: Cougars, Wolf, Wolf pictures, Wolves | 1 Comment »

Yellowstone and the Lamar at its finest–wolves, bears, and high drama

Posted on May 11, 2012 by Leslie

Yellowstone is at it’s finest in May, especially in the Lamar Valley. Just less than an hour away from my home, I’ve been three times this week. May is my favorite month. First off, because I’m south of the NE entrance, the road into the Park is not plowed on the Montana side during the winter, making travel to the Park in the winter extremely difficult. Once the Beartooth Highway is plowed (Memorial Day), traffic into the NE entrance is heavy. But in May, the roads are almost completely free of cars.

But more importantly, its the time of the year for calving. Bison, elk and pronghorn are all calving during this month and predator interactions abound. Bears, wolves and coyotes move into the Lamar looking for young and afterbirth. Plus you’re likely to see boars looking for sow bears to mate with.

Newborn with mom

Black grizzly

Grizzly in Lamar

Any day in Yellowstone is a great day but today hit the jackpot. As soon as I arrived, I spotted two wolves on a rise. A group of veteran wolf watchers had set up on what I used to know as Hill 44, but now they tell me its called Geriatric Hill!

This wasn’t just any old two wolves, but the Alpha female and her yearling of what is now called The Lamar Pack.

Lamar pack alpha female collared

A large grizzly lay on top of a bison that had died giving birth, its calf already consumed. Two wolves from Mollie’s Pack were also hanging around the bear.

Grizzly sits on carcass guarding it

What’s wonderful about these avid wolf watchers is that they know all the latest and past gossip about the Park packs. Literally its gossip because wolves are extremely social animals, and very territorial. These wolfers can recognize each wolf by sight, know their assigned numbers, as well as the history of each wolf and each pack. Hanging around with them, I asked questions and picked up the back story.

Mollie’s Pack has been around a long time in the interior of the Park. They’re well known because they were the only pack regularly preying on bison, which is quite a feat. Now, 17 strong, they have returned to the Northern Range and, without any pups to take care of and keep them near a den, they are roaming and killing off other wolves. I asked one of the wolfers why they aren’t denning.

“Their Alpha female disappeared. No one knows what happened to her. She was old though. The Mollie’s paid a visit to the Lamar Pack’s den the other night. Things seem to be okay as of now, but see those two Mollie’s are moving in on these Lamar wolves.”

The two Lamar’s were grey and smaller. They sat on a rise with their eyes glued to the two larger black Mollie’s on the south side of the sagebrush plateau. Between them the grizzly laid happily on the carcass. For over an hour I watched the Lamar wolves glued to one area, while the Mollies moved closer then farther from the bear. The Mollies seemed restless. One of them kept howling for reinforcements, which never came. Obviously, their agenda was two-fold: move the bear off the carcass and get rid of those Lamar wolves.

Then something dramatic happened: all of a sudden the Lamar Alpha female started running towards her den. Through the sagebrush, she was coming directly towards us. With the wolfer crowd cheering her on (“run girl, run…”) she swam the river and ran across the road, presumably back to her den. With some hesitation, her yearling pup followed, swimming the river for safety from the Mollie’s.

Alpha female hightails it away from Molly Pack

Lamar alpha swims river back to den

She emerges right below us by the road

“We might have to just cut off those Mollie’s if they try to follow. It’s not kosher, but those Mollie’s have already decimated several of the packs here and we don’t want them killing off these Lamar wolves”, my new wolfer friends from Kansas told me. “We come here four times a year–spring, fall, winter. We’re going home next week.”

She got out her walkie-talkie. “The pup’s coming across the river. Stay in your places. Don’t move.” I asked who she was talking to. “Anyone with a radio. I’m just telling them not to crowd the pup or get in her way while she’s running back to the den.”

Lamar wolf pup swims away from Molly’s Pack

With the resident wolves gone, the Mollie’s began moving closer to the grizzly. A feeling deep, beyond words, overcame me. I was witnessing a drama so ancient that the genetic blueprints are hidden in the dusts of bear/wolf evolutionary history. The Mollie’s harassed the grizzly for a time while the bear growled and swatted and the wolves growled back, then laid down nearby in the grass to wait their turn. I had the feeling wolves have mastered the art of being patient for their chance at a meal from a bear.

With the high drama passed for the moment, I made my way down the valley to see what else was happening. Just as I was thinking that I probably wouldn’t see any coyotes with all the wolf activity going on, a coyote came trotting up the roadside. I pulled over and watched.

Coyote searching sagebrush for prey

The other day I’d seen a coyote sneak up to a small herd of bison with calves. The bison made a surround around their calves, and when the coyote got within 10 feet, the two bison moms put their calves inbetween them and made a tight fence with their bodies. I thought this coyote might be up to something. He was definitely hunting.

Coyote made a laser for a group of Pronghorn. I’d read that coyotes are the main predator of antelope calves. It seemed to me there have been more Pronghorn this year than I’d ever seen in the Lamar. With the introduction of wolves and the subsequent reduction of coyotes, I’d heard that the pronghorn were rebounding.

Coyote was definitely hunting for pronghorn babies. The group of pronghorn got skittish and started following the coyote, trying on the one hand to keep their distance and on the other to push him away.

Coyote searches sagebrush for pronghorn calves with pronghorns on his heels

It was an interesting dance. A lone male antelope oddly enough kept his distance, while the females were grouped around the coyote. Coyote was unperturbed by all the pronghorn attention. This time, it seemed, the coyote left without his meal.

Meanwhile, up the valley, a large herd of bison lazed with their newborn calves. I stopped for a while to observe and heard a lone wolf howling over and over from the west side of the Lamar.

Sitting here listening to wolf howls from male of the extinct Agate pack

I turned around and drove back to the east end. The wolfer crowd had moved west to observe the two Mollie’s, who had just run off an elk. I got out and spoke with a wolfer from England.

“We’re from the U.K. but we come here all the time. Last year we bought a place in Paradise Valley. That wolf you heard over there wasn’t from the Mollie Pack, but the male from the old Agate. He came through the secret passageway. (Note: I have no idea where that is but it sounded interesting) The Mollie Pack killed all the Agate females and since the bloodline goes with the females, the Agates are now gone. He’s been coming back and forth with a Mollie female.”

One can’t ask for a better day in the Park. On my way home, I just couldn’t help but think about the intensity and fascination people have with wolves, and how many people now come to Yellowstone Park just to watch wolves. Those people from Kansas would never have come four times a year every year before wolves were here. And why would people fly all the way from England many times a year, and even buy a house here, if wolves weren’t visible in the Park.

Besides the obvious ecological benefits wolves provide (think Trophic Cascade), there are new human economic benefits. I just can’t understand why the East side of the Park can’t get with the 21st century on this. Instead of plowing the 9 miles to the Park in the winter which would bring in throngs of wolf watchers (think Kansas people and U.K. people), the snowmobile lobby keeps it closed. Instead of advertising wolf watching, the wolf hating crowd is playing a wolf hating movie in Cody during tourist season. And soon there will be a hunting season here and my valley, which has premiere wolf watching in the winter, is slated for one of the highest quotas on wolves, more than there even are presently in the existing pack.

“The last wolf in England was killed in 1756”, the U.K. woman told me. “The reason some people hate wolves goes back to the Europeans who came here”, she said. “You know the ‘Little Red Riding Hood’ story? Europeans told that to their children so they wouldn’t go off with strange men. That’s not a story about wolves, but a story to scare little children into not trusting male strangers.”

Just a final note: I arrived in the Park a little after 11 am. I spent the morning watering my newly planted Limber Pines, then left after 10 am for a leisurely visit. All this excitement in the Lamar occurred in just 3 hours. I left the Park at 2pm and got home after 3. Wow, what a treasure our National Park is!

Bison with newborn calves

Filed under: Yellowstone National Park | Tagged: Lamar Pack, Mollies Pack, Wolves, Yellowstone National Park | 3 Comments »

Owls and more Owls

Posted on May 3, 2012 by Leslie

It seems that nature study comes to a person in batches. In other words, what you think you want to study might not be what presents itself.

Last week on my way to town there was a road kill Great Horned Owl. He seemed in good shape so I called the museum where I volunteer preparing specimens and asked if they wanted it. Since they already have plenty of Great Horneds, they passed, but this owl was a sign of what was to be a week full of owls.

The next morning, at 6am, I heard a strange owl call from the nearby forest. I thought it might be a Great Gray, and sure enough, when I listened to its call, it was. He was passing through on his way to a location north of here–maybe Reef creek or even Yellowstone.

The following week at the museum I was given a Long-eared Owl to prepare. The tag said it was found in my area in Sunlight. Her wing was broken and she’d died in rehab. I suspected it had been struck by a car. But when I saw the Game Warden the following day he told me he’d found a Long-eared Owl on the road before the area was opened to the public May 1st.

“That’s the owl I just prepared. Unfortunately, it died in rehab.” I told him. Who knows how it broke its’ wing.

Long eared owl

With all this owl activity, I decided to walk through my nearby woods with the intent of finding a roost. A pair of Great Horneds live there. Last year I watched one being mobbed by a Cooper’s Hawk. Great Horneds are considered the ‘Lions of the Forest’. They eat a lot of different foods, large and small. When I was helping with a Spotted Owl study in California, we learned that Great Horneds kill Spotted Owls. Watching that Coopers Hawk continuously swoop and peck at the Great Horned sitting on a dead fallen log confirmed how tough these owls are. That Great Horned was unperturbed; in fact, he acted like the Coopers was an inconvenient fly.

Great Horned Owl

It didn’t take long before I found a large cache of pellets beneath a dead spruce. The tree even had some owl feathers hanging from a high branch. I threw them all into a bag and brought them home for inspection.

My stash of pellets

Just the week before my boss at the museum, Curator Chuck Preston, put a vole skull under a microscope to demonstrate how to determine its’ species. The secret is to count the middle set of upper molars. One species has four closed triangles while the other species in our area has three.

I dissected all the pellets and found that this owl was feasting on voles. Dozens of voles and just voles were in these pellets. Using a hand lens to see the molars, I determined these were all Montane voles (Microtus montanus).

Montane vole

With over 30 Montane voles in these pellets, there were two other distinct skulls, much larger, and from a different species of vole. This was the Water vole (Microtus richardsonii).

Yesterday on a hike up Tipi Gulch, I came across another Great Horned Owl roost with some recent (seemed like that mornings) pellets. Inside were several Montane voles and one Water vole. Voles must be on the upswing and doing fine here this year. Voles also don’t hibernate and are active at night. Rabbits on the other hand have been scarce.

It was fun, and interesting, to check out what these owls are eating. So much activity in such a tiny forest nearby. Yesterday I retrieved my trail camera that was set up by my spring where I get my water. Look what else is traveling through these woods. As Thoreau says, you can spend a lifetime exploring a twenty mile radius.

Wolf with bad left hind leg

Filed under: Owls | Tagged: Great Horned Owl, Long eared owl, Montane vole, Owl pellets, Water vole, Wolf, Wolf pictures, Wolves | 1 Comment »

Cat Tracking and a wildlife bonanza

Posted on March 1, 2012 by Leslie

The Plateau

I’ve been hiking the plateau for several days now and, wow, what a lot of wildlife activity is going on there. A few days ago on my first jaunt I ran into a fairly fresh elk carcass. She was a very large and old elk. I’d been seeing lots of wolf tracks on the plateau and of course there were fresh tracks leading to the carcass

Rabbit prints with my own footprints too

That same day I realized where all the cottontails are–on Dead Indian plateau! The cottontails here seemed active and numerous and here I found and tracked a bobcat hunting them.

Several days later I explored a cliff edge on the plateau that looks out over Sunlight creek gorge. There, on a prominence, were over a dozen Mountain Goats, safely grazing on the edges where no sane predator including humans would go.

But today was a bonanza. There are plenty of deer on the plateau, and although there are elk tracks and other evidence of elk, I haven’t seen any with my own eyes. But I do run into deer occasionally. And with all the granite cliffs and rocks, that makes for perfect cat country. After scrambling up a huge granite boulder, I saw from afar some interesting large tracks that at first glance could be mistaken for wolf. But as soon as I got close enough to make them out, there was no question what they were–cougar tracks. I followed them for a while into a heavy deer area when they disappeared under the blown snow from yesterday. Some of the tracks were perfect ice. Seeing those tracks takes one’s breath away.

This track measures 3"x3" approx.

It seemed like this cougar was following me, figuratively not literally. As I lost the cougar farther back, I began concentrating on my bobcat that I found in virtually the same location as the other day. He or she was weaving around, obviously hunting again. Here is a photo of where the cat stopped to scratch in the snow.

Here is a photo of the bobcat in a sit-down in front of a large sage brush. Obviously something caught his attention there.

Bobcat sitdown

And there again was my cougar, making the rounds in this area too. Here are two prints comparing a cougar print with a bobcat, for size.

Cougar hind track measuring 2.75 x 3.25

bobcat track measuring 1.75 x 2"

This rocky area is incredibly active–so much going on. Partly because it is usually always windswept of snow, it is good ungulate habitat in the winter, which means food for predators. In the fall bears frequent the area to look for limber pine middens.

It was great fun tracking big and small cats today; and knowing that you’re in the presence of a cougar your heart skips a beat. Luckily, I have my personal wolf to protect me.

My great protector concentrating on his ball while a buck glides in the background

Filed under: Tracking | Tagged: Bobcats, Elk, mountain goats, Tracking, Wolf, Wolves | Leave a comment »

Wildlife update

Posted on February 16, 2012 by Leslie

Of course this wildlife update could never be completely accurate; its just my own observations and the result of a few conversations.

As I noted in an earlier post, up around Camp Creek where there is a nice mosaic of young and old spruce/doug fir forest plus open meadows, I saw sign of an abundance of Snowshoe hares with a coyote or two hunting them. But down here in the valley, cottontails are rarely to be found. Today I saw my first sign of a cottontail in the willows by my house. But on a walk near the upper bridge where I usually see a lot of sign, there were no bunnies to be seen. The same is true with the Jackrabbit population in the valley. Rabbits are subject to boom and bust cycles. I had thought it had a lot to do with the predator/prey cycle, but my boss at the museum told me its more complicated than that. In fact, so complicated that scientists don’t really know the cause. But, one prominent theory is that it actually has to do with plants. The theory goes that the plants the rabbits eat begin to build up toxins as a defense to over-consumption. The toxins get so high they eventually cause the massive mortality in the rabbits. The rabbits that remain of course, are the survivors and have the tolerance they pass on to their little bunnies. Eventually, the population builds up again.

With the lack of bunnies, you’d think the bobcat population might be down, but there’s been the usual one hunting in my neck of the woods.

Bobcat track

I’ve seen sign of him tracking turkeys. The turkey population on the other hand, seems to be holding its own. Regularly there are 10-15 wandering threw the woods, making a nice racket.

Turkey in snow

turkey tracks

Wolves this year are down in the valley. From 4 packs in the range last year, down to just two struggling packs of about 4 wolves each. The Sunlight pack has just disappeared, and the once ten strong Hoodoo pack that roamed from the northeast Park boundary of the Absarokas into Sunlight was reduced this summer by at least half due to cattle predation. What’s left of that Hoodoo pack has been the main wolf pack in the valley and apparently are not great hunters, as they have been struggling to kill the wise cow elks and are mostly predating on deer.

A wolf lopes through the snow away from a kill site

That being said, coyotes seem to be on the rise and in control of the valley. Their tracks are everywhere and their calls are heard nightly. When I arrived back here in January, I found an adult elk that they had killed. Today I found a dead pup, death unknown. But where I usually had seen wolf tracks regularly, for instance running down the roads, now I am seeing mostly coyote tracks.

Coyote caught on trail camera

I found a dead fox, dead from an injury to its leg. Its leg was mangled, maybe due to a trap or a fight with a coyote. The fox population seems to be getting healthier here, probably because of several years of wolves keeping coyotes in check.

A fearful fox lopes in snow before dying

Fox caught on trail camera

I would assume that the deer and elk are having a better year than last as there is much less snow with higher temperatures. There’s been fewer times when I’ve seen large herds of elk on Riddle Flats, maybe because there is plenty of clear ground in many places in the valley.

500 head of elk on Riddle Flat

I’ve seen a few Golden Eagles, but no Bald Eagles this winter. I saw some grouse today by the river happily foraging. And despite the fact that a completely insane hunter poached a cow moose and her baby this fall in the valley, the moose seem to be doing o.k. One resident told me she saw two bull moose and there are a few cow/calves hanging around. I have one cow and her calf by me. Moose normally have twins, but I’ve noticed the cow that hangs around my area hasn’t had twins for several years now.

I haven’t heard of any sightings of bear tracks, which surprises me because we’ve had such warm weather. I am still waiting to catch some marten tracks or an actual marten on my camera. I recently bought a new stealth camera, a Reconex which is made in the USA and is the top rated trail camera on the market. I need to get a sim card and batteries for it, then I’ll be setting it up first with the intention of catching that bobcat.

Filed under: Wildlife Corridors | Tagged: Bobcats, Coyotes, Elk, fox, Moose, Wolves | Leave a comment »

« Previous Page — Next Page »

Leslie Patten Books: Wild Places, Sacred Spaces

MY BOOKS ON WILDLIFE, GARDENING AND MORE

The Wild Excellence