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Two Wolf Stories-Yesterday and Today...
A legendary Montana wolf meets his end.. And 100 years later wolves are reintroduced to Yellowstone.
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Hello Everyone!
If you happen to be traveling through central Montana, take the time to stop in and visit the Basin Trading Post in Stanford. It might just be worth your while to pay respects to one of the most hunted outlaws Montana has ever known—the White Wolf of the Judith Basin.
Read on for the story of the fate that met the legendary White Wolf of the Judith Basin.
Meanwhile, this week you’ll find a feature chronicling the events leading up to the reintroduction of gray wolves into Yellowstone Park in 1995. A landmark series of events, ushered into our landscape by Bill Clinton’s Secretary of Interior Bruce Babbitt literally changed the face of Yellowstone—and beyond.
Today you’ll get the narrative. Next post you’ll get my perspective.
Happy Autumn 2024!
Charley Pike
Returning the Howl to Yellowstone
January 12, 1995—eight gray wolves were released into holding pens in the Lamar Valley of northern Yellowstone National Park.
Earlier that week Canadian wildlife biologists had captured the wolves (Canus lupus) in the foothills of the Alberta Rockies with bison-meat baited live traps. The wolves were crated and loaded in a horse trailer proceeded by a motorcade of U.S. National Park Service patrol cars headed for Yellowstone Park.
Those wolves were the first of many more that would be imported from Canada—designed to bring the sound of a howl back to Yellowstone and the Northern Rockies.
Two year before, President Bill Clinton’s newly appointed Secretary of Interior, Bruce Babbitt, declared that wolves were the missing link in Yellowstone National Park’s ecosystem. He insisted that wolves be returned to their natural environment.
Babbitt said wolves were needed to restore the Park’s ecological balance—and especially needed to control Yellowstone’s soaring elk population.
Wolves had not been a part of the Yellowstone scene since 1926. In fact, by the 1930s nearly all wolves representing three main Canis sub-species—gray wolves, Eastern timber wolves and red wolves had been wiped off the North American continent. (see story below).
For more than half a century hardly a howl could be heard from coast to coast.
While Bruce Babbitt showed up on the scene in 1993 and set the wheels of wolf reintroduction into motion, his idea wasn’t novel.
The concept of wolf reintroduction was first brought to Congress in 1966 by wildlife biologists who were concerned with ecological damages caused by the Yellowstone’s elk herds.
By the late 1980s the Interior Department’s U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service (FWS) had laid groundwork for wolf restoration using the Endangered Species Act, as their legal foundation. The ESA was signed into law by President Richard Nixon in 1973.
A year later the Ford Administration’s Interior Department appointed a wolf recovery team. But recovery efforts stalled for nearly a decade.
The first official national wolf recovery plan was released in 1982 under orders of President Ronald Reagan. Public and legislative sentiment though, as well as the willpower of the Executive branch, still continued to wane with regard to wolves.
That all changed when Bill Clinton was elected president in 1992. Clinton chose Babbitt, the former governor of Arizona, as his Interior Secretary. Babbitt whose family owned a ranch in northern Arizona along with a chain of Indian trading posts around the Grand Canyon, had long been an advocate of wildlife preservation.
Babbitt struck a deal with Canadian wildlife agencies to import wolves and place them in new homes in Yellowstone and central Idaho .
Three gray wolf family groups were captured near Alberta's Jasper National Park and transported to Yellowstone. On January 12th the wolves were ceremoniously placed in acclimation pens in the Lamar Valley. The carefully constructed pens held the wolves until it was deemed they were capable of surviving in the wilds of Yellowstone.
Each wolf was radio-collared as it was captured in Canada. Twice a week while in captivity they were fed elk, deer, moose, and bison meat. The pen sites and surrounding areas were closed to visitation.
After nine weeks the pen’s gates were opened and the wolves were freed to roam the Lamar Valley and beyond. Two of the females denned and produced nine pups the spring of 1995.
Babbitt reported to a Congressional committee it cost of $6.7 million relocate the first batch of gray wolves to Yellowstone’s Lamar Valley.
Meanwhile, controversy arose with reports that gray wolves from Canada had began to naturally recolonize the Glacier National Park area. The first wolf den in the Western U.S. in over 50 years was documented in Glacier in 1986—years before the Yellowstone releases. By the end of 1994 there were 50-60 wolves counted in and around Glacier National Park.
The specter of waiting for wolves to migrate to regions south from Glacier was too much for the Interior Department. Babbitt knew he had to act and act fast while the political winds were blowing in the wolves’ favor.
Adding to the agency’s lust to return wolves to Yellowstone was vigorous and relentless pressure applied by the powerful Defenders of Wildlife.
The Defenders of Wildlife dogged the department in the courts and held public events designed to garner support for wolf reintroduction. The mega-funded group sued for environmental impact statements, sought public comment documents and pushed for preemptive legal rulemaking.
And the Defenders of Wildlife wasted no words in taking credit for “listing” of wolves under the ESA—and for eventual wolf recovery.
“We changed the path of Yellowstone National Park for the better,“ wrote Jamie Rappaport Clark in 1990. That one action (wolf recovery), she said, changed the soil, the growth of plants and grasses, and the diversity and populations of wildlife throughout the park.
“The end to overgrazing in Yellowstone stabilized riverbanks and rivers recovered and flowed in new directions. And all we did was bring back wolves.”
A total of 41 wolves were imported from Canada and reintroduced to Yellowstone National Park between 1995 and 1997
And bring back wolves they did—and not just to Yellowstone where 120-140 wolves presently call home. The return of the wolf is widespread in North America where nearly 80,000 wolves call home.
By the end of 2023 Montana’s wolf population was pegged at 1,096—representing 181 wolf packs spread over 66,000 square miles.
In Wyoming 352 wolves in 43 packs were counted last year.
The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife estimates the state has an 145 wolves in 26 packs.
Idaho’s 1,270 wolves exceeds what the USFWS originally considered to be the entire carrying capacity for the states of Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Oregon, and Washington combined.
Today a total of about 4,000 wolves are believed to roam the northern portions of three states in the Great Lakes area.
Meanwhile there are an estimated 7,000 to 11,000 gray wolves in Alaska where the species is not listed. Canada's wolf population is estimated at 50,000 to 60,000 and is considered stable or increasing.
Year-round field research helps federal and state wolf biologists gain data on a broad range of wolf habits; including population dynamics, predator-prey interactions, social behavior, genetics, disease, multi-carnivore competition, ecosystem impacts, and human-wolf relationships.
The Defenders of Wildlife boasts that a total of 150 federal and and state wildlife biologists are working full-time on wolf recovery in five Western states.
A large part of their job is using radio telemetry to track and monitor wolf movement and habits.
In less than one year, a female wolf—Mill Creek Wolf #128 tracked by the Montana Department of Fish Wildlife & Parks—roamed from near Pray, Montana through Wyoming, Idaho, Utah, and eventually Colorado. This wolf traveled at least 1,000 miles during her journey.
As of early 2024 the gray wolf remains listed as “endangered” in the lower 48 states—except for Montana, Idaho and Wyoming and portions of Washington, Oregon and Utah. Wolves continue to be listed as “threatened” in Minnesota.
As a result of federal delisting under the ESA, states can assume management of wolves.
Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks has full authority to manage wolves upon federal delisting in May 2011. FWP is committed to ensuring the long-term survival of wolves while managing the population and addressing conflicts with livestock. FWP is also committed to involving hunters and trappers in the sustainable management of the species.
For Yellowstone, wolf reintroduction is deemed a classic success. With their return, Yellowstone's large carnivore community is fully restored and wolves are once again playing a critical role in Yellowstone's natural ecological processes.
Yellowstone National Park looks different than it did 30 years ago. That much everyone can agree upon. How different? And who or what is responsible for that change? Wolves, elk, bison, tourists, bureaucrats, climate change, invasive species… All of the above?
One thing is for certain—some things are hard to measure depending on your point of view.
100 Years Ago—The Ghost of the Judith Basin
The final show of respect for the White Wolf— a creature that plagued Montana’s livestock industry a century ago—came in 2018 when the “Ghost of the Judith Basin” was inducted into the Montana Cowboy Hall of Fame.
Round Butte and Square Butte north of Stanford dominate the skyline of the heart of the Judith Basin.
A legendary White Wolf was first sighted as a pup near Square Butte, Montana in 1915. For nearly two decades the rare snow white gray wolf roamed Central Montana’s mountains, river breaks and foothills. Over those years he was spotted by ranchers and hunters as far north in the Little Rockies to the south in the Highwoods and Big Belts.
His livestock kill-count was estimated in the hundreds. By the early 1920s the wolf was becoming a feared, hated and recognizable predator.
Early one morning in 1926 Earl Neill spotted the wolf on his ranch near Stanford. Grabbing his rifle, Neill shot—but only wounded him in the hind leg.
Four years later rancher A.V. Cheney’s five Russian wolfhounds cornered the White Wolf in a deep coulee near Geyser. Horseback and without a rifle, Cheney tried to rope him. The creature slipped through his loop leaving behind two severely wounded hounds.
Eventually the Associated Press picked up stories of the “wolf war” in central Montana and the news went national. Professional hunters and trappers showed up in the Judith Basin. They pursued the wolf (and with it a hefty reward) on horseback and snowshoes, with airplanes and with dogs. He outran and outwitted them all.
Stockmen across the Judith Basin swore the wolf possessed a “superior intelligence” due to his ability to evade traps. Men gathered in bars and swapped yarns about the wolf, They wagered on how long he would last.
On May 5, 1930, Earl Neill spotted White Wolf once more. He and his neighbor Al Close set out with two dogs. The hounds found the wolf in a dense patch of fir and circled the clawing, biting, and snarling animal. From about 40 yards Close raised his Winchester and fired.
The White Wolf weighed 83 pounds and measured six-feet from nose to tail. His teeth were chipped and worn. He was estimated to be 18 years old.
Close recalled the moments before he shot White Wolf: “I almost didn’t shoot because I thought, ‘What a shame to kill such a smart fellow.’ I knew it was the cruel nature of the wilderness, the fight for survival that had made him the ferocious hunter that he was. But I came to and let the bullet fly fairly into the face of the old criminal.”
While Judith Basin ranchers had loathed the White Wolf, they had also grown to respect him. They knew the White Wolf was too wily and noble of an animal to forget.
The Judith Basin Stockmen’s Association raised the money to have the White Wolf mounted so he could be put on permanent public display in the county.
For nearly 60 years the wolf was the centerpiece in the Judith Basin County courthouse. Today the wolf haunts the the Basin Trading Post in Stanford—providing a legacy for Judith Basin residents and a taste of the past for central Montana visitors.
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