Today was spent with the wolves of Yellowstone.
We knew about a bison carcass (from natural causes probably during their rutting season), over on the east side of Lamar Valley, so we hit it early this morning.
After 3 hours there, we were wondering about how wise our decision is. Usually bison carcassses last about 3 days at Yellowstone, and yet nothing was on this carcass...a bear and a wolfe had come by, but nothing really was working on the carcass, and with bears and wolves in the neighborhood, something had to be up -
Well it was.....
Apparently the Agate Wolf Pack had come a little close to the Lamar Canyon Pack and made a run at them, scattering the Lamar Canyon Pack leaving the pups scattered to the wind, and the parents nervous wrecks. As if that wasn't enough the Alpha Female of the LCP is the sister of the Alpha Female of the AWP and while they were watching their packmates fight, neither one of them entered into the fight as they recognized each other as sisters and won't fight each other, but can not prevent the others in the pack from fighting each other.
As the pups scattered and were scared to death, the parents started running toward their pups, but unfortunately the pups usually in this situation don't recognize the parents and run from them, so they usually go back to the den, where the mother can find them and bring them back to the pack, but this is still very stressful for the whole pack - regathering and recovering from the stress of the Agate Wolf Pack run at the Lamar Canyon Pack.
Through all of this action - watching the pack travel across the Lamar Valley, the Alpha Female recollection her pups and getting them back to the pack, while the pups and mother were busy howling at each other all day, which was beautiful and sad at the same time to hear.
Here is the Alpha Female of the Lamar Canyon Pack who is known as 06 as this was the year she was born. She's considered the prize wolf in Yellowstone and I refer to her as the GDY...Grande Dame of Yellowstone! She isn't collared, and is the top female wolf in one of the most recently successful wolf packs in Yellowstone. She's obviously a great mom and takes very good care of her pups and is a huge reason the LCP is doing so well.
Walt took this picture about a mile away as the pack was so stressed today that the rangers worked very hard to make sure that they had a huge berth from the visitors to the park so that the pack could put itself back together again. This was about as close as she came all day.
The day ended well, the wolves got some free food from the bison carcass, no bears today, and fortunately no Agates of Lamar Canyons killed and the Lamar Canyon Pack got most of themselves back together and the mother was reunited with her pups. We left at 2 this afternoon with all of them in the shade resting and fairly close to the carcass so that they could feed later on that afternoon.
