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The Call of the Wild

At dawn, when the ice mists rise over Yellowstone's boiling rivers, the wolves begin to howl. It is a sound like the wind slipping over glass bottles, a low moaning song that drifts through the frozen bones of the Lamar Valley. That sound hasn't been heard here for 70 winters, not since the last gray wolves in Yellowstone National Park were exterminated. It is pure music to biologists and animal supporters, who fought hard to bring back the voice of Canis lupus, the gray wolf, after a long, unnatural quiet.

Yellowstone was wolf territory for centuries. But settlers, arriving in the 1800s, feared the wolves. They hunted and killed them to protect their cattle and sheep. By 1926, the wolves were all gone.

Today gray wolves, also called timber wolves, are an endangered species in every state except Alaska and Minnesota. But a government program in Idaho, Montana and Wyoming aims to return these predators to their homes in the wild. Yellowstone is showing the way.

As early as 1944, wolf experts recommended bringing wolves back to Yellowstone. Wolves, they said, do not attack humans, no matter what people have read in storybooks. Wolves also keep populations of wild moose, sheep, deer and other large animals under control by hunting them. That's how nature kept Yellowstone's ecosystem in balance before humans arrived.

Leading The Pack Back
Ranchers opposed the plan to bring back the wolves. They were worried about their livestock. Politicians had another concern: restoring wolves might cost taxpayers too much money. After a long legal fight, the wolf fans won. In January 1995 the first batch of wild wolves was caught in Canada and brought to Yellowstone's mile-high valleys.

Later more wolves arrived, and several pups were born. Today there are nine packs and 38 lone wolves in and around Yellowstone. "It's going better than anybody expected," says Michael Phillips, Wolf Restoration project leader. "We've got more wolves on the ground, more pups have been born, and fewer animals have died than expected."

Since the summer of 1995, more than 14,000 visitors have reported seeing wolves. At a safe distance, through spotting scopes, spellbound tourists and busloads of school kids have seen wolves hunting, fighting and falling in love. Wolves are expected to boost the area's economy by attracting an extra $23 million a year from tourists.

The wolves wear collars that send out a unique radio signal. Park workers can locate the wolves with special equipment that picks up the signal. If a wolf roams too far from the park or causes trouble for local ranchers, it can be captured and moved. There have been very few attacks on livestock. Most wolves seem to be staying on federal land, where their natural prey roams. "For the most part, the wolves have been good neighbors," Phillips says.

A Baa-ad Idea?
Vern Keller, a rancher near Fishtail, Montana, disagrees. Last summer he lost eight sheep to wolves. Wildlife officials have been trying to catch the guilty female and her two pups. "I can't understand why people wanted to force this on us," says Keller. "But it's probably too late to stop it now."

A group called Defenders of Wildlife has started a fund to pay back ranchers like Keller for their losses. Keller and another rancher who lost four lambs were each paid about $1,200. Hank Fischer, who runs the payback program, says that while livestock attacks have been far fewer than expected, he understands the ranchers' frustration.

"What angers these ranchers are people they would call wolf lovers, for whom all of this costs nothing," says Fischer. "But supporters of wolves are taking some economic responsibility."

The Yellowstone wolf project won't last forever. After 10 wolf packs are established and produce pups three years in a row, the federal program will end. The wolves will then have to make it on their own.

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Did You Know?

• Wolves hunt in packs for large prey: moose, elk, bison. They pick off weak, old and immature animals.
• A pack, the "family" in which wolves travel, has one lead male and one lead female, called alpha wolves. A wolf pack has two to 15 members, including pups. But only the alphas mate.
• A pack travels up to 30 miles a day.
• Wolves usually have five to nine pups at a time. They are born blind. Wolves live about 15 years.
• In a pack, wolves have a well-defined order of rank . A wolf's rank determines its role in hunting and when it can eat.
• Wolves howl to warn of danger, gather the pack and announce a hunt.
• Gray wolves may be shades of gray, brown, black or white.

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