as the two stood side by side, one brother suddenly ran off. That looked like a dare for his brother to chase him. The other black accepted the challenge and went after him at top speed. The two took turns chasing each other in straight lines and in zigzag patterns, a game of catch me if you can. They ran, pranced, and twirled around in front of each other. It did not matter who chased whom, the point of all that playing was not to win, it was to have fun. The best word to describe the behavior of the yearlings was exuberant. As I watched them, I had a thought: they loved being wolves.
All that play served a purpose. I later saw a cow elk chase one of the yearlings. Although she could outrun the wolf in a straight-out race, he zigzagged back and forth so nimbly that she soon gave up in frustration. The vigorous play chasing had prepared him to outmaneuver the cow. At times the yearlings actively invited elk to chase them. I saw them do play bows in front of elk to get them to initiate a pursuit, then easily get away using the tricks they had perfected during their play sessions. It was like they were showing off.
As I watched the yearlings play that spring, I thought of how Yellowstone had become a promised land for the Crystal Creek wolves. No human in their new territory was trying to shoot, trap, or snare them. All they had to do was live the lives of wild wolves.
ONE MORNING I found 8 walking through Lamar Valley by himself. Five cow elk spotted him and chased him. As he ran off, he nervously looked back over his shoulder, saw they were gaining on him, and tried to run faster. They sped up as well. The cows got to within a few yards of him, then lost interest and veered off. A bit later he saw a big bison bull bedded down in a meadow. He dropped into a low crouch and stealthily approached the bull from behind. Soon he was within a few feet of the bull’s rear end, but seemed unsure of what to do next. The 2,000-pound bull casually turned his head and glanced at the insignificant small wolf behind him. Unimpressed, he turned his head back and resumed chewing his cud. Now the gray yearling was even more uncertain what he should do. At that moment, the bull flicked his tail to drive off some mosquitoes. The wolf spun around and ran off. If 8 was trying to figure out if this animal might be prey, he evidently decided that this bull was way too big for him to challenge.
Although he did not impress me that morning, I saw a different side of the young gray wolf that evening. He and two of his black brothers were playing and chasing each other. All three suddenly stopped, looked west, and ran into a stand of conifers in that direction. I got glimpses of animals running back and forth in the trees for a few moments, before I briefly lost sight of them. Suddenly, one of the blacks came running out of the forest with an elk calf carcass in his mouth. The other black, then the little gray, appeared a moment later, running in the same direction. Then I saw the grizzly. It was right behind 8 and gaining. The bear was huge compared to the wolf. It looked like a dinosaur chasing a kid in a Jurassic Park movie.
Apparently, the bear had killed the calf in those trees. The first yearling must have grabbed its prize while the other wolves were distracting the bear, which was now closing in on the small gray. I visualized the bear swatting the wolf with a front paw, knocking him down, and killing him. Anticipating what was going to happen, I tensed up. Based on what I knew of 8 and his history of being bullied by his bigger brothers, what happened next took me totally by surprise. I saw him stop, turn around, and confront the grizzly. Startled by this move, the bear pulled up abruptly. The two animals stood there, a few feet apart. It was like watching David standing up to Goliath. The bear looked like it couldn’t figure out what to do next as the wolf glared at him in defiance.
While the unlikely hero was confronting the bear, the black yearling with the calf was making good his escape with the other black right behind him. Both disappeared into a thick forest. I looked back at the little gray and the bear. They were still staring at each other from close quarters. Then the wolf turned around and casually trotted away. He seemed totally confident that the grizzly would not renew the chase.
The bear sniffed the ground and the air. Unable to figure out where the wolves had gone with its kill, it wandered off in the opposite direction. I later saw the three yearlings come back out of the forest. The yearling with the calf bedded down and fed on it while the other black and 8 lay down near him, respecting their brother’s right of possession.
That episode showed me there was more to 8 than I had first thought. He was the smallest yearling, the one the bigger brothers had picked on, but he was also the one who had had the nerve to stand up to a huge grizzly and get away with it. I realized that none of the other Crystal wolves, not his brothers or his parents, had seen him turn around and confront that bear. I was the only witness to his courageous behavior. Years later I heard Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson say something that applied to the little wolf that day: “Being a hero means doing the right thing, even if no one is watching you.” A few days later I saw 8 lead the pack on a chase of a cow moose, another indication of his rapidly developing maturity.
On July 5, I went out early to Lamar Valley and spotted 8 with two of his brothers. They were wrestling each other in different combinations, and the gray held his own. Later one of the blacks tripped, tumbled, and rolled several times as he was chasing his smaller brother. Seeing the black on the ground, 8 ran back and playfully pounced on him. The two sparred with their jaws until the black managed to squirm out from under him. The gray chased him for a while, then led both his brothers off, and I soon lost them in a forest.
That was my last sighting of the Crystal Creek wolves for the next few months. The elk left the valley to feed at higher elevations, and the wolves followed their migration. The tracking flights Mike and Doug did during those weeks found the pack roaming far and wide. They were often spotted twenty miles to the south in Pelican Valley, just north of Lake Yellowstone. I wondered what would become of 8. He was the lowest-ranking male in his family, but was exhibiting qualities that might make him a successful alpha male of his own pack if he found a mate and a vacant territory. I also thought about his three brothers. The coming year would be a critical one for the four yearlings and likely reveal their long-term fate.
5
The Rose Creek and Crystal Creek Pens
THE PLAN FOR the Rose Creek alpha female, 9, and her pups to stay in the acclimation pen through the fall of 1995 was threatened when a late July windstorm blew down several large trees just outside the enclosure. Two landed on the fence, creating a pair of holes. The damage was not discovered until a few days later, when Doug rode in on horseback carrying elk meat to feed the wolves. By that time, all eight pups had gone out through the openings. Luckily their mother had stayed inside the pen, and since the pups wanted to be near her, they were all still in the area. Mike and other personnel joined Doug and tried to recapture the pups.
At first, they could not see any of them. Mike decided to lure them out by howling. His plan worked and the pups ran out from the nearby trees, thinking the howling was from their mother. Three of the pups went back through the holes in the fence. After the crew closed the openings, they tried to capture the other five pups. They caught two and put them back in the pen. The last three got away but stayed near the pen from then on. Park Service crews left meat outside the pen for those three pups each time they brought carcass parts into the repaired pen.
On October 9, Mike and Doug went up to put radio collars on the five pups in the pen. When they got there, they saw that six pups were now inside. The only way that sixth pup could have gotten in was to climb the ten-foot-high fence surrounding the enclosure, then jump down. They captured the six pups in large fishing nets and placed radio collars around their necks. The average weight of the five-and-a-half-month-old pups was 65 pounds.
In those early years of the Wolf Project, all young pups and uncollared older wolves were assigned numbers. Some were later radio collared, but most were not. That system became impractical
