Judge Molloy was equally powerless to undo the maneuver, as he conceded in a short ruling that seethed with unconcealed anger. Congress’s action represented “a tearing away, an undermining, and a disrespect for the fundamental idea of the rule of law,” he wrote. And yet his hands were tied. The rider “sacrifices the spirit of the ESA to appease a vocal political faction,” he wrote, “but the wisdom of that choice is not now before this Court.” The only question was whether the rider was constitutional, and Molloy had to concede that it was. The rule was reinstated, and wolves were no longer protected in Montana and Idaho. The great victory that wolf advocates had won in Molloy’s court the previous summer had lasted less than a year.
State officials in Idaho and Montana were exultant. Four days after Tester’s rider became law, Governor Otter signed a bill declaring gray wolves a “disaster emergency” in Idaho and authorizing state officials to take immediate action to reduce their numbers. It played well with anti-wolf forces, though state officials quietly conceded that they were content with waiting for the regular fall season to renew hunting in the state. Montana would do the same.
“Things will be better tomorrow”: that was the credo wolves lived by, Rick had long ago decided. Regardless of the hardship and misadventure that every pack inevitably faced, they were essentially optimists. He tried to see life that way, too, but it wasn’t easy. In the weeks that followed, he found himself fielding questions from visitors about wolf-hunting around the park, and he answered as best he could, with the studied neutrality he’d learned to adopt as an employee of the National Park Service. The federal government officially supported delisting of wolves, after all, and good relations with game managers in states adjacent to the park were essential. During Montana’s 2009 hunt, Doug Smith had made some mild comments to reporters about the setback to his research caused by the death of collared wolves, prompting a personal rebuke from the park superintendent. The two weren’t always on the best of terms, despite the project’s success and popularity with visitors. “Why does the Wolf Project stick out like a sore thumb?” Smith’s boss had once asked.
This time Smith’s reaction was pragmatic. Another hunting season along the park’s northern and western borders was only five months away, and he was determined to limit the damage. He met with Montana wildlife officials to discuss limiting the take in hunting zones adjoining the park, especially around Jardine, where so many park wolves had been lost in 2009.
Still, it was inevitable that some Yellowstone wolves would be killed. Rick thought of the jaunt through Silver Gate that the Lamars had taken back in October. National Forest land lined both sides of the road through town and up to Cooke City and beyond, and the woods were full of hunters during elk season. If O-Six were to lead her charges on the same excursion this fall, one of Rick’s neighbors could step outside his home and shoot her in his front yard. Silver Gate was definitely a wolf-friendly town, but you never knew; Laurie sometimes heard old-timers muttering about all the watchers—“wolf groupies,” they called them—in the local motels.
—
Tester’s rider was all anybody in Crandall talked about for days afterward—Congress had finally done something sensible about wolves. Of course, it didn’t change the local situation in the slightest, since Wyoming still had no wolf-hunting season. Turnbull supposed he could head up into Montana and get a permit to shoot one, but he wouldn’t even know where to begin to look. The country he knew was in Crandall, as were the wolves that needed shooting.
Turnbull hadn’t seen too many signs of them in recent months, though he’d been out in the woods as much as he could, collecting shed elk antlers as he did every year, and keeping an eye out for the best-looking black bear he could find, the one he’d be taking that season. Crandall hadn’t really had a resident wolf pack since government hunters eliminated the local wolves almost entirely in the summer of 2008. They had done the same thing to a pack denning in nearby Sunlight in 2010 after a rancher there lost some cattle, and now only a pair of wolves were left in that basin. The word was that they weren’t denning, so there’d be no pups that spring.
Still, Turnbull knew there were wolves around. Louie Cary usually kept pretty good tabs on what was happening on the other side of the mountains in the Lamar Valley, and he kept everyone in Crandall up to date on which Yellowstone wolves he’d seen coming and going. It seemed a new pack was denning in Lamar, and they were coming east from time to time, as park wolves tended to do. In fact, Turnbull had a friend at a bar in Cooke City, where he went for beer and barbecue almost every Sunday, who had spotted a pack that spring walking right down the road from Silver Gate. He thought he’d heard a howl or two himself recently, coming maybe from Hunter Peak, behind Louie’s place.
Calf survival in Yellowstone’s northern herd had been dismal again that spring, which meant another lean fall was coming for elk-hunters all around the park. Turnbull wasn’t sure who represented Wyoming in the U.S. Senate, but he was starting to wonder what exactly it was they did for a living. If John Tester could do what he did for Montana, then why couldn’t Wyoming’s senators do the same thing?
—
When Doug Smith and Roger Stradley, the park’s longtime pilot, flew over Yellowstone’s mountains and valleys, Smith didn’t always look for wolves. Sometimes he counted beavers. Once a year he and a handful of other researchers flew over almost the entire park to make note of beaver food caches—piles of wood big enough to be spotted from the air—each of which signified the presence of a beaver colony. Not long after wolf reintroduction, Smith noticed that he was finding more and more colonies; from just 49 in 1996, the number had ballooned to 118 by 2009. The increase was partly due to a reintroduction of beavers that had taken place just north of the park in the mid-1990s, but that didn’t explain why the animals had found Yellowstone’s streams so hospitable after decades of absence. The answer seemed to be a resurgence of willow, the riparian shrub that is the beaver’s preferred food.
And why was the willow coming back? Smith was still trying to figure that out, but he knew the answer almost certainly had something to do with wolves. As their numbers grew after reintroduction, elk numbers had of course declined, but—just as important—their behavior had changed as well. No longer free to congregate at their leisure along stream banks, elk were spending less time browsing on willow, which left plenty for the beavers.
More wolves, it seemed, meant more beavers, but that wasn’t all: the return of Yellowstone’s top predator was having repercussions up and down the park’s food chain. The Lamar Valley that O-Six claimed as her own was not the same landscape that her Druid ancestors had been introduced to fifteen years before. It was healthier in ways that even some of the wolf’s most ardent advocates hadn’t anticipated. Biologists called this type of chain reaction a trophic cascade, and by the spring of 2011—ironically, just as the political situation was turning sour for wolves—it was the hottest research subject in the park, not only for Smith’s own colleagues at the Wolf Project but also for visiting biologists from around the country. At a time when species were disappearing from the earth at a rate faster than that of any period since the extinction of the dinosaurs, here was a rare success story: Greater Yellowstone, the largest intact temperate ecosystem left in the world, was returning to its former glory. Smith happily greeted every visitor and kept tabs on every study, proud to be at the center of so much intellectual ferment.
One of the most dramatic changes concerned coyotes. Yellowstone had long hosted one of the densest coyote populations in North America, but that quickly changed with the reintroduction of wolves. After decades as Yellowstone’s top canines, the park’s coyotes seemed to have lost their collective memory of how to coexist with their much larger relatives. They routinely approached wolves feeding on carcasses, as was their habit when they spotted an easy meal. Time and again wolf-watchers observed coyotes realizing their fatal mistake far too late, as the faster and more powerful wolves easily ran them down and ki
lled them. Wolves colonizing new areas of the park routinely dug up and destroyed coyote dens, killing any pups they found, to eliminate competition for prey and to make their own dens safer. In short order, Yellowstone’s newly dominant canines reduced the Northern Range’s coyote population by half.
What happened next was revelatory. The park’s rodent population, long depressed by years of unchecked predation by ever-present coyotes, rebounded immediately. This meant a sudden increase in the food supply for raptors like owls and hawks. Healthier birds began having larger broods, and Yellowstone’s bird-watching community began seeing an avian renaissance, something they never realized they were missing. Weasels and foxes also benefited from the rebounding rodent population, and their numbers began to grow, too. Even pronghorn numbers were up. Though no predator in North America can run down a healthy adult pronghorn, coyotes routinely fed on helpless newborn calves, which had long depressed the park’s herds. Wolves, however, seldom take pronghorn calves, so their displacing of coyotes meant more antelope survived to adulthood.
Another surprise for Smith and his colleagues was the sheer number of animals that fed on wolf kills. Not only ravens and magpies but also coyotes, foxes, and eagles routinely visited almost every carcass, despite wolves’ efforts to keep them away. Smith began calling the phenomenon “food for the masses,” and the Wolf Project biologists Dan and Erin Stahler, a husband-and-wife team, began turning out paper after paper on the phenomenon.
Wolf kills were also a major new source of nutrition for the park’s bears and, it turned out, a very timely one. Wolf reintroduction coincided with a steady decline in the production of whitebark pine nuts in the park, a key source of protein for bears. They routinely raided nut caches created by the park’s squirrels in the fall, the season when bears were preparing for hibernation and needed to feed as much as possible. Climate change was considered the most likely cause for the decline, and researchers expected to see less healthy bears and fewer cubs as a result. Yet the bears seemed to still be thriving, possibly, researchers theorized, because elk carcasses brought down by wolves were offsetting the loss of the nuts.
New research on declining elk numbers brought unexpected results as well. Each year state game managers tabulated the number of elk taken by hunters—the harvest, as it was known. The northern Yellowstone herd had declined dramatically, limiting the harvest in a few areas immediately adjacent to the park, but statewide elk harvests hadn’t dipped at all in Wyoming, Montana, or Idaho. In fact, they were trending up: in 2010, for example, Wyoming hunters took 25,420 elk, a new record for the state and a 30 percent jump from 1995, the year wolves were first reintroduced.
Even more promising, from Smith’s perspective, was a new study by the young biologist Arthur Middleton, who set out to measure elk calf survival rates in the region east of the park. Wolf critics, especially the Wyoming Farm Bureau, were acutely interested in Middleton’s study, correctly anticipating that he would report the numbers to be at almost historic lows. But they were somewhat less enthusiastic about the findings from the second phase of Middleton’s project—his assessment of what was causing the decline. After months of observing elk interact with predators, he concluded that grizzlies, not wolves, had taken the majority of the calves, and that most elk in the region rarely encountered a wolf at all. He also concluded that stress caused by drought, not wolves, was the main driver of low pregnancy rates among cows, which further depressed herd numbers.
The science was on Smith’s side, but it didn’t seem to matter to ranchers and hunters, or to state legislators. The debate wasn’t about science anymore, if indeed it ever had been.
—
By mid-April, O-Six had disappeared altogether, and Rick knew that a new litter had been born. The watchers set up camp across the road from the base of Druid Peak in a large parking lot known informally as Hitching Post, since guided horse trips into the Lamar Valley often left from the spot. News that the den was once again in use traveled fast, and Hitching Post, along with a pair of adjacent pullouts, filled up quickly every morning, as a hundred or so people set up shop to wait for the Lamar wolves to make an appearance.
With the yearlings now joining in the hunt, the den was well provisioned and well protected. Though hidden from view, it was not far from the road, and wolves bringing food home crossed the blacktop so frequently that rangers were obliged to put up signs prohibiting stopping along a stretch near the base of the mountain, to prevent endless traffic jams caused by wolf sightings. There was a particular spot where the Druids had always crossed, a narrow gully now immortalized as 21’s Crossing, and the Lamars instinctively used it as well, drawn to the cover it provided right up until the unavoidable dash across the blacktop.
On June 21, the watchers finally got their first view of the new pups, in a meadow a short hop east of the den forest. This time there were five, three blacks and two grays, all healthy and eager to explore. In the weeks that followed, Hitching Post was more packed then ever: watchers were deterred only slightly by the washout of the park road a few days after the first sighting, as Soda Butte Creek jumped its banks just upstream from the parking lot. As the days warmed up, the park’s unusually heavy snowpack led to enormous runoff, and every stream in the park had become a gushing torrent of ice-cold snowmelt.
The Lamars were now twelve members strong, and the constant coming and going from the den forest meant there was almost always something for the watchers to see. Although it took a good while, and countless observations of urinations and comparing of notes, the watchers eventually determined that both gray pups and two of the three blacks were females. Along with the two female yearlings, the family had become female-heavy, which meant that sooner or later 755 would be dealing with suitors from other packs.
—
It was beginning to look like he might be doing so without his brother. 754 was spending more and more time alone, which wasn’t uncommon in summer, when the pack was at its least cohesive. The new litter of pups kept the alphas relatively immobile, leaving subordinate wolves largely to their own devices. Hunting was happening singly or in parties of twos and threes for the most part. Yet the den was still the axis of each pack member’s orbit, and 754 was returning to check in less and less often. In his absence, Shy Male had stepped into the favored caregiver role for the new litter of pups. He shared his uncle’s gentle nature, along with the boundless reserves of patience the job required.
754 also seemed reluctant to come in to feed on kills when other pack members were present. He was leery of O-Six in particular, who had begun forcing the brothers to wait to eat, snarling and snapping at them until she had filled her belly with meat for the pups. When she was in this state, 754 didn’t even bother groveling, though that was always his first instinct. Instead he would sometimes appeal to his brother, as though 755 might somehow hold the key to getting the pair a spot at the table. But 755 had learned to simply wait until she was gone. When he got too close on one such occasion, she’d seized his lip between her teeth and given a vicious shake, and he didn’t need a repeat lesson. If it meant the brothers seldom got the choicest bits—the heart and other organs, for example—that was just the way it had to be.
One morning 754 tagged along with a hunting party consisting of O-Six, 755, and Dark Gray Male as they tested a herd of perhaps two hundred elk above Slough Creek, not far from the old den site. With four yearlings and five pups, the pack now had a lot of mouths to feed, and kills were becoming fewer and farther between as midsummer in the valley pushed the elk up into higher elevations, where it was cooler and the forage was better. The prey that remained were approaching their physical peak, well fed on the valley’s abundance.
754 watched from a distance as the threesome approached the herd from below and the elk closed ranks. O-Six drove into the milling mass, trying to split them apart. But there were too many, and instead of marshaling her quarry, she succeeded only in creating chaos. She found herself fleeing east across the mountainside w
ith a bold cow in pursuit, only to be caught beneath the hooves of a large group of elk bolting heedlessly in the opposite direction. She was rolled like a dog between the wheels of a pickup but leaped up unscathed. The elk regrouped, and the hunters came away with nothing.
As his packmates considered their options, 754 maintained his distance. Not long ago he would have been running alongside his brother and O-Six. Now that the yearlings were becoming accomplished hunters, his presence wasn’t so important. He was still the pack’s beta male, which meant that O-Six, long the object of his desire, would become his mate if something were to happen to 755. But it had now been eighteen months since she chose 755 instead of him, and though he still showered her with all the affection she would tolerate, it was clear that he would have to leave home if he was going to find a mate of his own.
Rick had grown so accustomed to seeing the three adults together, it was hard to imagine what the pack would be like without 754. It had only been a few seasons, but it seemed like much longer. The brothers just seemed of a piece with each other, 754’s goofy antics complementing his brother’s workmanlike demeanor.
If 754 did leave the pack, nobody would miss him more than Doug McLaughlin. 754 had become his favorite wolf. Every watcher had one, just as a teacher always has a favorite student or a parent (secretly) a child. To Doug, there was something tragic about 754: his gentleness in spite of his great size, his boundless loyalty to his dominant brother, somehow untainted by his hopeless pursuit of his brother’s mate. His continued presence in the pack had always been at the whim of his brother, and every gesture 754 made seemed to be an apology, every decision colored by the endless drive to seek approval.
If 754 left the valley, the watchers could still track his collar’s signal, but he might relocate somewhere remote where sightings were virtually impossible. Or he might not survive the effort at all.
American Wolf Page 18
