MAMMOTH HOT SPRINGS, WY – Yellowstone officers reported two wolf pups were killed after they were struck by a vehicle near Tower Junction and the Northeast Entrance on Tuesday evening, November 19.

Park officers say the pups belonged to the Junction Butte Pack–one was male and the other was female.

According to park officers, the pack lived in a den nearby a busy hiking trail in the northeastern portion of the park and became too comfortable around humans summer of 2019.

Their den was closed off by park officials in order to prevent human and pup interaction. However, some visitors failed to obey the 100-yard separation from wildlife rule and interacted with the pups when they came close to the trail.

via Two wolf pups killed by vehicle in Yellowstone | All Abc Fox | abcfoxmontana.com

MICH– The National Park Service (NPS) in collaboration with the State University of New York – College of Environmental Science and Forestry (SUNY-ESF) concluded summer predation monitoring by the wolves introduced to the Isle Royale ecosystem in the fall of 2018 and winter of 2019. This marks the first time wolf predation has been monitored on Isle Royale during snow-free periods. The monitoring effort utilized the most recent advances in the study of wolf predation patterns.

Park staff and research partners from SUNY-ESF used GPS data from collars on the introduced wolves to identify “clusters” of locations that signified areas where wolves spent extended periods of time. Between May and October, field crews visited 381 of these sites, determined wolf behavior associated with site use, and located the remains of 60 prey, including primarily moose, beavers, and snowshoe hares.
Read more  Isle Royale Wolf Project Researchers Document Summer Predation – Isle Royale National Park (U.S. National Park Service)

On a bitterly cold January afternoon in 2011, Tom Gable was snowmobiling to his family’s remote cabin near Killarney Provincial Park in Ontario.

Suddenly, on his right flank, a dark figure appeared across the frozen lake. “Initially, I wasn’t sure what I was looking at … but then I realized it was a wolf,” he said. “I could hardly believe it — I had never seen a wolf before, let alone watch one for a minute or so. I was enthralled.”

It wouldn’t be Gable’s last encounter. Far from it. Since 2015, Gable, 28, a Ph.D. student at the University of Minnesota, has been the project lead for the Voyageurs Wolf  Project — an ongoing research effort to uncover the secretive lives of North Woods wolves. It began as a small project in 2012 at Voyageurs National Park and increased in scope and intensity in 2015.

Read more…  Uncovering the secretive lives of Minnesota’s North Woods wolves – StarTribune.com

YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK — Doug Smith has been spending a lot of time thinking about tweety birds lately.

The Yellowstone scientist best known for his work on wolves is now leading a study of jays, warblers and sparrows, among other bird species. His researchers wake up obscenely early, leave the office by 3:30 a.m., and are in the woods listening for bird calls before the sun comes up.

The goal is to figure out what migratory and resident birds are living in old growth, subalpine forests consisting of spruce and fir trees — a forest type climate change could erase.

via What will we lose? Tracking climate change in Yellowstone | Environment | bozemandailychronicle.com

Efforts to rebuild the wolf population at Isle Royale National Park have resumed, with authorities relocating a wolf from Michigan’s mainland to the Lake Superior island last week.

A 70-pound, 2- to 3-year-old male wolf was captured in the Upper Peninsula, flown to the park and released on Friday. It’s the first animal moved in the second year of the program to bolster the island’s wolf population.
via Isle Royale wolf relocation project resumes; 15 now roaming the island | MPR News

Ready or not, you could be approached by someone wielding a clipboard who wants to educate you about the Gray Wolves Initiative.

The plan will require Colorado’s Parks and Wildlife Commission to develop and implement a plan to reintroduce gray wolves to the state’s Western Slope. In 2020, voters could have the opportunity to weigh in on whether they are willing to bring back the apex predator that has been absent from Colorado since 1940.

Excitement elicited by June’s confirmed sighting of a lone wolf near the Wyoming border rippled through the state. However, many wolf biologists believe that waiting for wolves to independently return to Colorado to establish a sustainable population could take decades.

Wolves ran afoul of settlers in the early 1600s, and a bounty was declared in the colony of Massachusetts. In 1940, the last Colorado wolf was trapped and killed. But public sentiment began to pivot, and by the early 1990s, Americans began to recognize and value the wolf’s place in nature.

via Greene: Will Colorado roll out the red carpet for the gray wolf? | CanyonCourier.com

A lone wolf captured and radio-collared in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula last year was struck and killed by a car west of Meadowlands last week, following a journey covering more than 2,000 miles and three states over 14 months.

The male wolf, No. 27121, was trapped and fitted with a GPS transmitting collar near Cup Lake in Gogebic County in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula on May 28, 2018. In June, 2018 it crossed into Wisconsin, where it spent the rest of the year wandering, as far south as Oxford, in south-central Wisconsin near the Wisconsin Dells. It started heading back north this spring and ended up back in its home range in the U.P. by May.

But then it started wandering again, this time west across Wisconsin and crossing into Minnesota just south of Duluth. It kept going west and then north, as far north as Wildwood, east of Northome in Koochiching County, before aiming south. It was struck by a vehicle on Highway 133 about three miles west of Meadowlands and recovered on July 28.
via Michigan wolf wanders over 2,000 miles in 3 states | Duluth News Tribune