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Do Wolves Change Rivers or Do Men Change Wolves?

Posted on December 12, 2025 by Leslie

I’m thrilled today because for the first time in a long time I followed wolf tracks, three wolves who were on a mission. Why so excited? In the past on this blog I’ve written about following wolf tracks, about watching wolves in our valley in the winter, and encountering them on hikes. But since Wyoming began yearly hunts starting in 2016, wolves quickly became very elusive. They were no longer curious who these 2-legged creatures were. They now knew.

White wolf of the Wapiti Pack

I’ve written about how I no longer hear wolves howling in winter in the valley. Some of these changes go along with habitat changes in our elk herds that dovetails with less snow cover and a quickly changing climate. But overall the change in how wolves are using the landscape coincides with human hunts.

I live in the regulated area of Wyoming where there is a season and a quota on wolf hunting, mid-September to December 31. But in 85% of the state, wolves are classified as “predators”. That’s not a biological designation. Here in Wyoming a “predatory animal”is defined by our state legislature and under the control of Wyoming Animal Damage Management Board and USDA Wildlife Services. All other wildlife falls under management by Wyoming Game and Fish (WGF). Predator status comprises a weird group—coyote, jackrabbit, porcupine, raccoon, red fox, skunk, stray cat and of course wolves (in 85% of our state.)

But in the managed hunting zone, called the Trophy Zone, basically in the Northwest corner of the state, wolves are tightly managed. A bit of background as to how Wyoming sets their quota limit year to year and on what basis the WGF determine what their target number of wolves is.

When U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service began their long process of input from the public regarding bringing wolves back to the states, transplanting and moving wolves had never been done before. They knew they’d be bringing them in from Canada (just an aside, there is no such thing as a “Canadian wolf”. Wolves don’t have countries. These are all Canis lupus who occupied almost the entire range of North America. Only the red wolf is a different species Canis rufus, now almost extinct.) because the lower 48 no longer had any wolves. Since this was a novel experiment, many biologists thought the transplanted wolves would just “home” back to their natal range. They also had no idea what constituted a “minimum” number of wolves that would be viable for genetic diversity, and what number an area could support. So they literally just made up a minimum number of wolves per state and noted in the supporting documents that if the number of wolves, and the number of breeding pairs, fell below those numbers in any one state wolves would be automatically relisted. That number is 150 wolves and 10 breeding pairs. Wyoming was allowed to use Yellowstone Park to help support their numbers. The breakdown is 100 wolves and 10 breeding pairs outside the Park; 50 wolves and 5 breeding pairs inside the Park.

What surprised biologists is that the wolves didn’t return to Canada, but adapted quickly to their new environs. And very soon it became obvious that 150 wolves per state (especially states like Idaho and Montana with a lot of high quality habitat and prey versus Wyoming which has a lot of high desert with isolated mountain ranges) is a ridiculously low number, a made up number that should never have been used as a base metric. Yet the states hold that number up like religion, overjoyed at how low they can go in their hunt quotas.

One other thing to note in the original agreement with the states is something called the 10J rule. Although wolves were protected under the ESA, they were returned as an experimental population which limited some of their protections. The 10J rule was the compromise that got ranchers on board. Basically it said that wolves that predated on livestock could be dispatched by the USFWS. The Service took a while to figure it out. In the beginning they indiscriminately took out wolves, many times the entire pack. But over time they learned how to remove wolves surgically without disrupting entire packs or creating areas devoid of wolves. When delisting occurred, the culling of wolves and all the management was handed over to the states.

Back to Wyoming hunt quotas in our trophy zone…Wyoming Game & Fish manages wolves as a tight science. They want to keep our wolves at around 150, hedging their bets with an excess of 50 wolves outside Yellowstone. They know anything can happen like disease that can quickly decimate a population. One year we only had 11 breeding pairs, dangerously close to an automatic relist. The one good thing about their tight management is that WGF GPS collars wolves every winter, attempting to get at least one collar in every identified pack. Thus they have an exact count of wolves in the trophy zone.

Montana and Idaho, on the other hand, don’t collar, but use either game cameras and hunter success forms or include a sketchy method of habitat suitability with approximate number of wolves. Both states assume high numbers of wolves in the state, set their seasons and quotas long and high. They allow guns, trapping, baiting, night goggles, bounty payments and all sorts of dubious types of kill methods that would never pass for ethical hunting.

Why then has it been so hard to see or track wolves in my area for the last several years. Wolves, like bears, are notorious for using roads for passage. That makes perfect sense as roads are easy navigation through difficult terrain. With wolves wary of humans, that isn’t the case in winter anymore, making tracking or seeing them more difficult.

This coyote ran right over three wolf tracks on the main dirt road

But there’s another element. More wolves are killed in “controls” for livestock damage then in the annual hunt. For instance, in the 2024 annual hunt report 31 wolves were killed in legal hunts in the managed area versus 43 wolves killed in controls (8 of those in the predator zone by the Agency. That doesn’t include the 51 wolves killed in exclusively the Predator Zone). The main pack in my area, the Beartooth Pack, had 7 wolves killed in a pack of 9 for predation on 3 cows. Basically, almost the entire pack was eliminated. There are thousands of cattle on our public lands during the summer, almost all of them belong to one producer. Cattle die from many things. During that same summer, Game & Fish hauled off the highway 5 dead cows that were struck by cars so bears and other wildlife wouldn’t feed on them. One year over 50 cows were killed by Larkspur, a plant that can be poisonous to cattle. Plus the state of Wyoming pays the producer 7 times the market price of a cow killed by wolves (3x killed by grizzly bears).

Wyoming Game and Fish collaring a young sedated wolf

All this history, living in the same area for twenty years, living through ten years of wolf protections and 10 years of hunting has given me perspective plus a lot of time to think about what might be a better way of managing wolves. I don’t have the answers, but I have some thoughts as to a start.

What we are lacking is overall federal management guidelines based on good science. These would be binding for all states that have wolves that are delisted and under state management. This would include:

  • Humane methods of hunting only (NO baiting, trapping, night goggles, night hunting, limited seasons, no hunting when pups are too young to travel with their pack, no hunting during breeding and pup season, so generally this means Oct-December or January)
  • New minimums based on updated science tailored to each state that would trigger relisting
  • Areas with large tracts of public suitable lands for wolves such as around Yellowstone Park need to be treated differently than areas with private and public lands mixture. Landscapes with an expanse of wilderness, wolves will self-regulate and there is little need for hunting. [I call them Science Zones]. In addition these areas are critical for genetic exchange. My area used to provide support for wolf packs in the Lamar Valley and vice versa. With annual hunt culling of wolves in this valley, we no longer have that kind of exchange.
  • Proven methods and support for livestock producers. Instead of paying producers for losses, pay them for equipment and training for non-lethal methods of protection. Encourage and provide help for Co-ops to buy equipment such as fladry or horns cheaper in bulk. Those methods must be in place before there is any legal take tag given. California has a 2 and 3 strikes rule for a depredation tag for mountain lions, based on where in the state it occurs. That should be mandatory for producers and wolf protections.
  • Public education as to the value of wolves. This is a critical piece. There is an unbridled hatred of wolves, leftover from our European background and Manifest Destiny doctrine. Thousands of people come to Yellowstone to get an opportunity of a lifetime to view wolves. Education needs to go hand-in-hand with that opportunity. I still hear people talk about “Canadian wolves killing all our elk” while they watch wolves.
Hearing wolf howls in Lamar Valley YNP

There was a time in my valley, pre Wyoming hunts, when our area had the most wolves in the Northern Range, about 40 wolves in 3 packs. During that winter I watched the packs vie for the best territory. The Hoodoo pack killed off the Sunlight Pack’s pregnant Alpha female. I was seeing these wolves self-regulate, confirming that they didn’t need hunting to control their numbers.

That said, I’m not completely decided on some limited hunting versus no hunting at all. I thought the USFWS did a good job when they were in charge of the 10J Rule with surgical culls. Packs that focus on livestock predation after a producer has honestly tried non-lethal methods can certainly be warranted.

It’s past time for an honest, open discussion about humane and science-based management for wolves, with the vitriol and lies turned off.

My children’s book on wolves told from the point of view of a dog. True stories

Coda: I had the opportunity to measure skulls in the Draper Natural History Lab for a study. I also went to Yellowstone and the Denver Museum of Nature and Science to measure skulls. A few photos below.

Control kill by USFWS during 10J rule. This was a wolf pup. You can see molars and pre-molars still emerging
Another control kill by USFWS. This is an old wolf. Worn teeth and broken canines
This is one of the last wolves (a female) killed by USDA Biological Survey (now Wildlife Services) in Colorado November 1921. Held in the archives at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science by W. Caymond, a hired hunter who killed off the last wolves in the state. Caymond’s story is told in full in Wild New World by Dan Flores

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How to Think about Climate Change and Grizzly Bears —A Thought Experiment

Posted on December 11, 2025 by Leslie

Today, December 11, there is no snow on the ground at 6500 feet, a warm wind blows hard in 50 degree temperatures. I’m wondering what the future might hold for our grizzly bears as climate change marches forward. No one really knows. The sensible prescription is to make sure we provide corridors for passage to alternative foods as ecosystems change. That’s the best planning we can do.

Grizzly family foraging a cow carcass that died of Larkspur poisoning

But I thought I’d indulge in visualizing what it could be like for bears, and especially for grizzlies since so few of them remain in the lower 48–only around 2000 in the Yellowstone ecosystem and the Northern Continental Divide, just a fraction of their historic range.

Probably the best place to look to is California where grizzlies once roamed but were extirpated by the early 1900s. Tracy Storer was a zoologist at University of California Davis. He spent years collecting every historical scrap on California grizzlies ever put on paper—in magazines, books, journals, newspaper clippings, Spanish logs, or Mission records. In 1955 he published California Grizzly. We now have better grizzly biology than what’s noted in his book, but the book records the fascinating story of grizzly habits along with Spanish and white men encounters. No one knows how many grizzlies California had. Joseph Grinnell, using suitable habitat and assuming one bear every 20 square miles (at one point the Interagency Grizzly Bear Team was using females with cubs every 19 square miles for population estimates) he estimated 2595 pre-1830.

Other sources estimate 10,000 bears because people met “herds” of bears, or bears in groups. Seeing 16 bears in “one drove…and that grizzly bears were almost an hourly sight, in the vicinity of the streams, and it was not uncommon to see thirty or forty a day.”(1841 Sacramento Valley). Although sightings of grizzlies in groups were common, that’s probably not that different from today where dozens of bears can be seen on moth sights or Alaska bears at salmon runs. Where food is plentiful, bears are tolerant of each other. California acorn season in the fall drew lots of grizzlies, beached whale carcasses, or large fields of clover.

Grizzly rooting around for tubers

Although there were probably a few grizzlies that denned in the Sierras, those environs were left to black bears, while most of the grizzlies were resident in the lower elevations and along the coast. Storer writes: “We think that, of the grizzlies living at lower elevations, the females with their young cubs were sequestered for a time, but the others were active through much or all the year…”

As our climate warms and conifer forests succumb to beetles and other pests, shrubs and grasses will dominate the landscape. Our National Forests will turn into National Shrublands. This favors grizzlies who are usually 80% meatless in their diet. Grizzlies are opportunists. They’ll find new foods. A warden who spent a lot of time helping biologists tag bears once told me grizzlies were following streams out of the mountains into the lower elevations in fall, feasting on Russian Olive fruits, an invasive species planted here several decades ago which has taken over native cottonwood habitat.

Lack of food is the main driver of bears denning. With warming weather, there might be many types of food year round. Insects will be out year round, rodents that usually hibernate won’t, shrubs will keep their foliage longer, grasses will grow year round.

Grizzlies might do alright, but don’t expect them to hibernate, except for females who need to give birth to their helpless young in the den. Of course, I am being optimistic here. No one knows what the future brings as our climate seems to be warming at a rapid rate. Ensuring protected habitat through partnership with private lands and our federal and state lands, is the best we can do at this point.

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Winter, climate, and wildlife

Posted on December 7, 2025 by Leslie

Winter is slowly creeping in. Our temps are above normal for December ( daytime 30s and some 40s) but the wind has been arctic fierce. So different than when I first moved here in 2006. December wasn’t always our snowiest month, but definitely our coldest. Back in December fifteen years ago was when I first experienced a -35 degree night. I learned the trick of throwing a cup of boiling water in the air and watching it quickly vaporize.

Cold temperatures aren’t as tough on the wildlife as deep deep snow is. Deer aren’t very equipped to handle six foot or more snow that doesn’t get windblown. They can’t paw through it. In places like Jackson WY with tremendous amounts of snow, as winter arrives elk move in but deer migrate south. Even that pattern is an anomaly. Elk that summered in the Jackson area used to head to southern Wyoming and as far south as the Red Desert for winter. But as the town grew in the early 1900s, elk abandoned their annual migration and fed on the stored hay of cattle ranchers. To mitigate this, the federal government set up the National Elk Refuge. The Refuge began artificial feeding of elk in winter, luring them away from local ranches. Over time these elk lost their traditional migration memory and they now stay in Jackson, fed on the Refuge and several other sites.

Deer don’t usually like to hang with elk. I’m not sure why. Yet in tough winters, I’ve watched deer stick near the outside of large herds of elk. Hundreds of elk in wind blown areas not only tamp down the snow but can use their long powerful legs to scrape areas clear, helping deer out.

Winter of 2016-17 was epic. Many deer died from starvation
Deer struggling in deep snow

Moose on the other hand are built for deep snow. The winter of 2016 was a doozy, with epic amounts of snow. With 6 feet on the level in my front yard, I once watched a moose and her calf easily plow through. No other wildlife could manage. That winter was hard on our migratory mule deer herd. Deer are faithful to their home ranges. They were starving, and when the first grasses poked through the snow, they ate voraciously. The game warden told me those first shoots have little nutrition, so although they were filling up they died quickly. Hiking around the valley in April, I kept finding dead deer that no predator had touched, only their eyes pecked out. In contrast, elk are not so faithful and most of the herd descended into the lower elevations to escape the deep snows. Where we once had 2000 elk in winter, the last count was about half that. I suspect a lot of those elk kept that different migratory pattern finding how it benefitted them .

Wolves seem very fit for cold and snow. I can remember watching my dog sink in snow while following tracks of wolves that were gliding on top. Even at 100+ pounds and large paws, they are built to cover long distances and deep snow.

Wolves in negative 30 degree weather

Our climate is changing, and fast. In the 18 years I’ve lived here full time, I’ve watched dramatic changes in winter. Our winters are compressed and milder. Instead of a deeply frigid December, we have mild Decembers, usually with little snow. For the last 4 to 5 years, now February is our coldest month. One February a few years ago the temperatures didn’t crack zero all month. Snows are late. There’s still snow accumulation in the high country (8000-10,000 feet), but lower elevations 6000-8000 feet have droughty conditions. That means come spring and summer, smaller creeks and drainages that used to supply wildlife with water dry up quickly. Sustained cold temperatures (negative 30s for several weeks) that used to kill beetle larvae in winter are no longer. Instead, between drought, beetles, and budworm moths, our forests are full of dead trees with a ground cover maze of downed logs, impassable for wildlife and humans.

Changing climate means we have to account for changes that wildlife will need to sustain themselves. That means protected landscapes and corridors for passage.

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Public Lands, Grizzly Bears, Cattle

Posted on August 26, 2024 by Leslie

I’ve got a theory. Bear with me as I tell my story.

This last June I was exploring a drainage that burned in the 1988 Yellowstone fires. There’s no trail but I’ve encountered coyotes denning farther up the draw; a place I like to go and investigate. The northeast side of the draw is filling in fast with a thick cover of young lodgepole tree. The ground, however, is a maze of burnt and rotting timber you have to clamber over.

June is when the free-ranging cattle are trucked into the valley. The major livestock producer runs several thousand head of cattle, all yearling males, which he rotates through a range of Forest Service allotments throughout the summer. Mid-June is a time when grizzly bears are foraging at lower elevations. By early July, summer heat and the lure of Army Cutworm moths drives the bears to higher elevations. These young naive yearling cattle roaming freely, especially in heavy timber, are easy Spring prey for hungry grizzlies.

The access to this side draw begins on an open hillside. Right away I notice fresh cow pies indicating that the yearlings have been here recently. As soon as I enter the dense lodgepole pine forest, something didn’t feel right. I pull my bear spray out of its holster, release the safety, and keep my dog at a heel. A large pile of grizzly scat—soupy, wet, and clearly from a meat meal—greets me amidst the tight tree cover. Then a waft of a dead animal fills my nose. The air is still but as the aroma is getting stronger, I can tell it’s coming from somewhere ahead of me. That was my cue to move swiftly to the open meadow on the other side of the creek and high-tail out of there. But I determined to return in a few months to see if what I sensed was correct. Months later in mid-August when I know the bears are up high and the cows are out of that area, I return to see if my instincts were correct. Sure, enough, in short order, after combing the timber, Hintza, my dog, easily locates the dead animal I smelled months ago. Yes, it was a cow. And yes, with all that fresh meaty bear scat, that had been a bear on it.

What was left of the smell from June.

But this wasn’t the first freshly killed cow by a grizzly I’d encountered in the month of June. A few years ago, in an adjacent drainage, I was walking along the gravel road when I saw a strange unnatural hump of dirt and sagebrush. There were drag marks across the road as well. The dirt hump was a covered cow, freshly killed by a bear, one of the most dangerous circumstances you can come across. Bears will defend their kills. The following year and in the same area, the warden rode by on an ATV and warned me I was heading for a dead grizzly-killed cow which he was about to remove. That’s three fresh grizzly kills, a very dangerous situation for a hiker or a horseman. But every summer on hikes I run into dead cattle fully consumed after they’d been predated on—stiff hides with bones scattered.

Those of us who live and recreate in grizzly bear country are instructed to secure our food. I use a bear-proof trash can. Others in the valley keep their garbage locked in their garage. Residents are very conscious of not feeding bears. Yet putting cattle out on public lands in early spring, when grizzlies are hungry and foraging down low, seems akin to putting food out for the bears, especially young naive yearlings. Bears are smart and I’m betting grizzlies here are learning there’s a good source of easy meat. It may even be possible that instead of heading to moth sites and higher elevations, some bears are sticking around throughout the summer. Yearlings who are free-ranging, unfamiliar with the landscape and its risks, are akin to leaving easy food out for bears. That linked article discussing two relocated bears for killing cattle says “bears that are determined to be a threat to public safety are not relocated and might be killed.” But who is creating that risk? If cattle, like our garbage, are not managed correctly, we humans only have ourselves to blame.

Caught this grizzly on my camera August 2, 2024. I know this bear. He usually comes around in the fall. Here he is below in 2016 early September on ripe chokecherry bushes.

If cows are going to be free-ranging on our forests, (and I feel that livestock on public lands should be “at your own risk” as these are the only lands wildlife have) consideration needs to be given to where and when. Don’t put cattle out in June when grizzlies are down low and hungry. As an alternative, livestock trucked in in June can be placed in areas that are highly visible with a cowboy checking them frequently. Free-ranging cattle in highly populated bear areas are not only endangering the bears (Wyoming has a 3-strikes rule) and livestock, but also hikers, cyclists, horse people and other recreationists.

Two grizzlies killed by USFWS for cattle depredation in my area this summer. We have moth sites and it is unusual for bears to be down so low in August instead of at high elevation moth sites nearby. On one of these August cattle predation sites, there were four grizzlies on the carcass!

So are we training grizzlies to hang around while the pickings are easy, akin to leaving garbage out for them? I think the Forest Service, who manages timing and allotments, can do a much better job for the bears, the cattle and the people. Ironically, jurisdiction is split. The Forest Service does the range management, but it’s the Game and Fish, through state mandates, that pays producers compensation for cattle killed by grizzly bears. But I think it all comes back to the first defense of proper range management to reduce cattle and grizzly deaths. A radical thought would be to have no free-ranging cattle in grizzly country. Why not! But if the status quo must continue, then shift and limit the timing of when and where cattle are located across the forest.

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Yellowstone in June

Posted on June 13, 2011 by Leslie

A blustery, unpredictable June brought with it fantastic wildlife watching in my three days in the Park.  I spent two nights in Mammoth and did several hikes.  On one, we ran into that herd of Rams you see.  150 years of no hunting leaves the wildlife very relaxed around people.  The rams hardly noticed us, moving slowly across the trail and up the hillside about 20 feet away.

From what I heard today, so far not too many cubs of the year (COY) have been spotted.  But I was a lucky one to get to watch a mom and 2 cubs for about fifteen minutes before they disappeared into the trees.  The cubs spent the entire time playing, rolling around, and then catching up with mom…..soooo cute!  One the way home I watched a courting pair of grizzlies.  The female was collared.  They rested together for quite some time under a tree while dozens of people watched about 100 yards away.

Yellowstone in May/June is the best time of the year.  One woman told me she spotted 71 bears last year in two weeks.  In early July grizzly bears move up into the high country to hunt for moths.  The elk follow the grasses higher up as well.  Wolves tend to follow the elk.  So although you may see these animals in summer, the sightings will be fewer and more difficult to find.

The wildlife, the thermal activity, the incredible setting–that is the magic of Yellowstone and spring is the best time of year to come.

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Grizzlies and elk calves

Posted on May 31, 2011 by Leslie

Its unusual to see  the Cody backcountry herd grazing every morning and night this time of year.  Usually, by now, they’re headed over the passes to calve in the Lamar. But the snows in the high country are still too deep and the melt hasn’t even begun.

I’ve been watching this small herd from my window.  They come early morning and evening.

Elk May 20, 2011 still in Sunlight

The other morning I spied a lone elk.  I watched her for a few days going back and forth between the herd in the pasture and a patch of willows in the nearby forest.  She’d disappear into the willows and the forest by the road and seemed concerned.  I had a feeling she had a calf hidden in the brush there.

The lone cow with deer

But last night something strange happened which made me wonder if I was correct.  Instead of just this lone cow wandering over to this marshy area, a cadre of about 7 elk wandered over there with her and disappeared into the forest.

So this afternoon I took my bear spray and cautiously investigated while the elk were grazing.  In a muddy area of the creek, now widened by slash and blow downs from the logging last year, I spied a grizzly track moving in the direction of a small clearing.  A few yards up from the track, there was the calf, completely consumed.  Only the skin and legs remained.   It had been predated right where it had lain, for it was in a heap in the grass by a freshly fallen spruce bough.  I inspected the little legs and skin.  The small thing was deftly and perfectly skinned.  Certainly a bear, and my guess is it was that grizzly who made the track just a few feet away.

Grizzly in the Lamar feeding amongst the willows

I had hoped to spy a living calf, so I had a sicken and sad feeling.

Six out of 10 elk calves are predated within their first 10 days.  They are fairly helpless for those first two weeks.  Many people say the calves don’t have a scent, but I would disagree. I haven’t seen tracks in those marshy areas and this griz went directly to that calf.  The calf was not too far from the road, but at the edge of a wide swath of logged forest that includes a lot of swampy areas.  That bear did not wander about through the open woods looking for an elk, but clearly walked from the nearby meadow into the woods right to the calf.  Handling the calf’s skin, I could smell it on my hands.  It doesn’t have a strong smell, and staying on the ground low keeps it’s smell down.  But it does have a smell and to a grizzly, I’m sure its pretty strong.

I was in the Lamar Valley a few days ago and within an hour saw three grizzly boars in the valley. A friend told me in 2 days she saw 20 bears just in Lamar Valley.  The Lamar is becoming a favorite of the grizzlies.  I have wondered if these migratory elk, who usually calve in the Lamar, might have better success here.  Certainly there are bears here, but not as many as in the Lamar.  That’s a question I can’t answer.  Unfortunately for this little elk, it wasn’t the case.

And one more question I had:  Why, last night, did I see 7 or 8 elk accompany mama elk into the willows, not a route the elk ever take around here?  Was that a show of sympathy and support?  After that, the lone elk has not been alone anymore, and I haven’t seen her nor any of the others wander into the willows.

My heart felt saddened for that little calf and her mother.  But I can’t blame the grizzly.  How could I…I went home and enjoyed a BBQ’d bison steak myself.

Sleeping grizzly.

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Can we really Re-Wild?

Posted on May 29, 2011 by Leslie

I just came back from New York where I picked up a few interesting books.   Two of them present similar science on our vanishing wildlife but different approaches.  End of the Wild by the late Stephen M. Meyer  who was a professor of Political Science at MIT, says it is just too late to save the biodiversity on this planet.  It is known that in the next 100 years, more than half the planet’s species will disappear.  Meyer’s says that there will still be plants and animals, but they will be the weedy species that survive more easily around humans–from dandelions to coyotes, mosquitos to corn–species that survive in human disturbed eco-systems.  His is a pessimistic view.

The other book I’m reading, Rewilding the World by Caroline Fraser is a fascinating read, presenting a more hopeful view that will take work, though.  Scientists concur that ecosystems, to remain intact, need three things–Cores, Corridors, and Canines (or translate top predators).  For instance, a Core would be Yellowstone Park; a Corridor would be the Yellowstone to Yukon project; and the Canine would be the wolf in this case.

Y2Y map

One of the most fascinating bits of research Fraser quotes that began this kind of thinking amongst scientists was a study done in 1990 by John Terborgh, a biologist who studied a stranded hilltop ‘island’ created by a new hydroelectric dam in Venezuela that flooded a valley.  As the new lake filled, the predators fled, leaving only smaller creatures behind on the islands.  I quote the book below:

“After a team studied the islands, the data painted a horrific picture.  Safe from predators, howler monkeys proliferated on some islands, but they were not enjoying their freedom from fear.  Normally social animals, they were living alone, attacking one another, and killing their own infants.  By denuding trees, they caused surviving plants to protect themselves with toxins, so meals provoked vomiting.  Many plants are capable of deploying extraordinary chemical defenses against herbivory by inducing a rapid rise in levels of toxins that can repel or kill those feeding on them.  On islands with howler monkeys, the instability caused by the absence of predators and superabundance of herbivores set off a vicious chain reaction.  

On other islands, predators of left-cutter ants were absent (armadillos and army ants) and the ants ran amok, carrying everything green off to their underground nests, leaving a…thicket of impenetrable throny vines, destroying all remaining life, plant and animal.  Terborgh and colleagues reported that after a few years almost 75 percent of vertebrate species had been lost from the smaller islands without jaguars or pumas.”

Fraser’s book examines corridor projects around the world, successes and failures.  She looks at central and south America, and large projects in Africa.  Many of the African projects are of interest, not only because of the great diversity of megafauna (particularly elephants which reck havoc amongst farmlands and villages and need very large corridors) but because they are multi-national endeavors–huge corridors that cross nation boundaries. Like the Greater Yellowstone, these Peace Parks (a concept first begun with Waterton-Glacier Park) include protected cores, as well as corridors where people live.

I can’t begin to describe all the different approaches here, but certainly the corridor projects that have been the most successful involve the local communities and take into account their needs.  One of the most botched plans was Paseo Pantera in central America, where good intentions became convoluted by developers getting involved and local peoples weren’t taken into account from the start.  The project degraded into an “integrated conservation and development project”

Large animals need large corridors.

Large Corridor areas for large animals

 And there is also the ‘problem with predators’, a human problem that has been obvious in the GYE since the wolf was eliminated in the 30’s in Yellowstone, and millions of coyotes, bobcats and other predators have been routinely destroyed with tax dollars for decades due to cattle predation.

Yellowstone to Yukon is a corridor concept that has been around since 1997. Its a conservation vision to preserve our North American great animals for future generations and for the earth.  Some work is being done already, like over- and underpasses for wildlife; wildlife friendly fencing, and species reintroduction.  But to be successful, it will take people living within this corridor to be involved and share the same vision, to do their small part whether it be active shepherding their livestock or replacing their fences for pronghorn passage, or saying ‘no’ to intensive housing developments in corridor areas, or as small as bear-proof garbage cans.  People need to realize when they live or move to these areas that they are becoming involved in wildlife corridors, which have special requirements, different than city or suburb living.  And help and education needs to be given to those people, such as ranchers, affected by corridors. Solutions must be community based but with the greater vision in mind.

Fraser states ” ‘Carnivorous animals are important.  We have to stop thinking of them as passengers on this earth and start thinking of them as drivers.’ Inevitably, an ecosystem robbed of its top predators begins a remorseless process of impoverishment.”  If we are truly interested in saving the great animals of North America, from wolves to bison, elk and pronghorn to grizzly bears, we who live here must all become involved in the Vision of Y2Y, stop our regional bickering and look towards the wholistic future.

Fraser’s book presents a glimmer of hope for Rewilding.  We, as a world culture, are fighting a strong current of species loss.  It is a great fight not just for these species, but for ourselves and the future of mankind on this planet.  Meyer’s vision of a world of limited weedy human-adapted species may sound livable, but boring, and missing the richness of magnificent mammals such as tigers, elephants, and crocodiles.  But Fraser’s admonition of the howler monkey hell, a potential future with the absence of diversity and predators, is a world not worth living in.

Filed under: Wildlife Corridors | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments »

East of Yellowstone lies the Absarokas–Crow Country

Posted on March 2, 2011 by Leslie

East of Yellowstone lies the Absarokas, the Big Horn Basin, and the Big Horns.  To the southeast lie the Wind Rivers.  These were the original lands of the Crow peoples.  This is where I live. Below is a wonderful quote from a Crow Indian chief about 200 years ago.  If you stay here, you are in the Center of the Universe.  At the Center, things happen as they should and you will fare well, he says.  Wow,  two hundred years later and this is my experience too!

Big Horns from the Basin

 

“The Crow Country is a good country. The Great Spirit has put it in exactly the right place; while you are in it you fare well; whenever you go out of it, whichever way you may travel you fare worse.”

“If you go to the south, you have to wander far over great barren plains; the water is warm and bad and you meet with fever and ague. To the north it is cold; the winters are long and bitter and there is no grass; you can not keep horses but must travel with dogs. What is a country without horses?”

“On the Columbia they are poor and dirty, paddle about in canoes and eat fish. Their teeth are worn out; they are always taking fish bones out of their mouths; fish is poor food.”

“To the east they dwell in villages; they live well, but they drink the muddy water of the Missouri – that is bad. A Crow’s dog would not drink such water.”

“About the forks of the Missouri is a fine country; good water, good grass, plenty of buffalo. In summer it is almost as good as the Crow Country, but in winter it is cold; the grass is gone and there is no salt weed for the horses.”

“The Crow Country is in exactly the right place. It has snowy mountains and sunny plains, all kinds of climates and good things for every season.”

“When the summer heat scorches the prairies, you can draw up under the mountains, where the air is sweet and cool, the grass fresh, and the bright streams come tumbling out of the snow banks. There you can hunt the elk, the deer and the antelope when their skins are fit for dressing; there you will find plenty of white bears and mountain sheep.”

Absaroka high country

“In the autumn when your horses are fat and strong from the mountains and pastures, you can go down into the plains and hunt the buffalo, or even trap beaver on the streams.”

“And when winter comes on, you can take shelter in the woody bottoms along the rivers; there you will find buffalo meat for yourselves and cottonwood bark for your horses, or you may winter in the Wind River Valley, where there is salt in abundance.”

“The Crow Country is in exactly the right place. Everything good is to be found there. There is no country like the Crow Country.”

Arapooish, also known as Chief  Rotten Belly around 1830.

Filed under: Crow Indians | Tagged: , , , , | 5 Comments »

Shapeshifter

Posted on February 6, 2011 by Leslie

This is a great documentary, free online, by Canadian Geographic on coyotes.  Humans have been trying to eradicate coyotes for years, unsuccessfully.  In fact, whereas coyotes were confined to a small area of the West a hundred years ago, now they are ubiquitous, all over North America, from cities to suburbs, on islands and the countryside.  Why, no matter how much humans have trapped, shot,and  poisoned coyotes, do they come back in greater numbers than before?

Coyote hunting ground squirrels

Here in the GYE, wolves were eradicated by the 1930’s.  Since then, coyotes have been the bane of the sheep, cattle, chicken, and any other type of rancher.  Coyotes are considered ‘varmits’ and can be shot on sight in Wyoming.  Coyotes used to be blamed for all the troubles.  With the reintroduction of wolves, now wolves are blamed.  But if you want to keep coyotes under control, then you need to have wolves around.

According to YNP biologist Bob Crabtree who has been studying coyotes since before wolf reintroduction, since wolves came on the scene in Yellowstone, there has been an 80% reduction in the coyote population.  Coyotes are the oldest indigenous species in North America, some 3 million years old.  Their arch enemy is the Wolf.  Over the thousands of years of dealing with wolves, coyotes have become cunning and adaptable under that stress.  They have developed highly sophisticated strategies of dealing with high mortality rates.  For one, they breed rapidly when under attack and produce more litters.  For another, they can feed up and down the food chain.

Coyote pup

Each year in Yellowstone 1/3 of the coyotes are killed.  This makes the survivors much smarter:  Super Coyotes.  And although wolves are their nemesis, they also provide a smorgasbord of food.  Coyotes in Yellowstone mostly eat ground squirrels.  It takes a few to make a good meal.  But when wolves kill large prey, the wolf pack will eat their fill and leave the rest.  Coyotes can take advantage of their leftovers, which is like eating 100 ground squirrels.

Coyotes taking advantage of a wolf kill

So it pays to stick around the wolves, but not too close.  This stress has produced powerful survival skills. It seems coyotes evolved to do better in a state of flux.

Humans created conditions for coyotes that have allowed them to populate all of North America.  They’ve killed off their primary enemy, the wolf.  They’ve cultivated fields and created open spaces.  They’ve filled those open spaces with nice plump meat to raise pups with.  And by putting stress on coyotes through trapping and killing, humans are acting like wolves, making the coyotes breed more rapidly.

Everyone I know has a story about coyotes in the city and suburbs, close and strange encounters, bold coyotes.  I’ve watched coyotes kill a deer right next to a house.  I’ve  seen them lounging mid-day on the grass in a cemetery.  I know a friend whose daughter was walking her dog in the open space of Marin County who became surrounded by coyotes.  She started singing and they left.

Urban coyote rests mid-day in local cemetery

 

Singing brings up a good point.  Biologists who are studying coyotes in urban areas say, since we can’t eradicate them, we will need to learn to live with them.  One biologist says “They are teaching us things maybe we don’t want to learn yet.”  As top predators in an urban environment, there is a ‘nervous harmony’ that can be adapted to.  Humans need to learn to just scare coyotes away–use a hose, shout, sing, water pistols–make those coyotes think “These humans are so unpredictable”.

The documentary had some interesting things to say about the eastern coyote.  It seems they are growing bigger.  DNA studies reveals the eastern coyote is mating with the smaller Eastern (as compared with the larger grey wolf of the west) Wolf to create a super top predator–smarter, wilier, more adaptable.  It seems ancient Native Americans understood Coyote much better than us modern humans when they described him as ‘the trickster’, the ‘shapeshifter’.

I applaud Coyote.  Humans have taken over every inch of North America, as well as the entire world.  Rats, cockroaches, and a few other smaller species thrive around humans.  But Coyote is the only large predator that has adapted and fully populated all of our environments.  He truly is more cunning than us!

Coyote hunting voles

Filed under: Coyotes, Yellowstone National Park | Tagged: , , , | 6 Comments »

The wolves have a good day

Posted on February 18, 2010 by Leslie

What a day!  Let’s begin with 4″ of fresh snow.  Then add 5 wolves running past my property, 4 greys and 1 black.    Throw in back tracking and tracking the wolves to explore what route they are using to come down into the valley.  And for the day’s finale, watching the wolves on two kills they’d made by the road this morning.

Lots of elk tracks too on this beautiful day

Around 1 pm, we heard the dogs barking and looked out the front window to see 4 beautiful wolves running along the nearby pastures through a herd of horses.  Those horses are used to dogs so they didn’t seem perturbed one bit.  And those wolves were ‘booking’.  They had someplace to go or a meeting to attend.  Within just a few minutes they were up on the opposite hillside and over the divide, a hike that takes me at least 45 minutes!  Then along came a limpy grey following way behind.  They all looked amazingly healthy, no mange.

Limpy wolf but seems to be doing fine

These are the new Sunlight Pack, pushed slightly south into Elk Creek because of a much larger pack of 10 wolves occupying their northern range.  Last winter I didn’t get a chance to see the Sunlight Pack as they were hanging deeper west in the valley, moving with ease back and forth (north and south) across the valley floor.  This has been their home range for several years.

There’s an elk study going on, in its fifth season, in the valley and they’ve been able to do some good collaring this year of wolves.  And so they’ve learned that the Sunlight Pack has been bullied a bit by this larger pack to the north.  In fact, all that howling I heard on Valentines’ day was the Hoodoo Pack making a kill on the northern side of the river, a side that used to belong to the Sunlight pack.

Tracks of four wolves 'booking it'

At around dusk I went up the road to get a closer look at the kills and see if there were any wolves still  on them.  The UofW crew said they processed the kills and they were two older cow elks, about 10 and 12 years old.  “How old is old for an elk?”  I asked.  “About 15.  Some can live till 20, but that’s really old. These were in pretty good shape,” they informed me.  

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With some quick and dirty math, I figure that’s about 50 or 60 years in human terms.

Filed under: Tracking, Wolf | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments »

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