Since our last post, all has been quiet on the home front here in the Wood River Valley. We have been collecting more and more photos of wolves throughout the study area, including first-time detections at several sites! The photo above was taken along a sheep travel route and we had lost hope that there were wolves nearby. Despite wolf detections in nearly all of our allotments there haven’t been more confirmed wolf depredations. As a result, we have been out howling frequently to identify rendezvous sites and confirm consistent wolf presence.

A wolf passing by an area sheep had recently occupied

On one such journey, Nate and I hiked high to the top of a peak above a drainage where sheep would soon be passing. Although we had found tracks and scat nearby, no wolves responded to our howling. We were disheartened to not receive a response in an area we were confident in, however, as we dropped down the spruce covered hillside a bobcat scattered in front of us. This was the first of the season for both of us and made the evening well worth the effort.

Around the corner, Nate waited for me with his headlamp illuminating a massive, ancient whitebark pine. He pointed out several different bear claw marks, climbing steadily up the trunk until they ended about fifteen feet up. It turned out to be quite a satisfying end to the evening (or beginning of the morning, as we got back well into the early hours of dawn), despite not hearing howls back.

While we didn’t hear wolves that night, the next morning I got a call from a herder in a nearby area. He told me he had heard wolves howling the night before, but from the complete opposite direction from where Nate and I had been. I had him point out on the map where he had heard it from. It could not have been us, as we were more than five miles away from his camp. This was exciting news, but even more exciting was that he immediately went out and sounded off his air horn and fired his starter pistol (this only fires blank rounds!). On top of this, he called his boss the next morning and asked for an extra Livestock Guardian Dog. This herder had called me to ask me to bring him more air horns, blank rounds, and an extra protective collar for his new dog. I was thrilled! This herder’s band had experienced pretty intense sheep loss the year before, and it seems like he took notice and has begun to take preventative action to stop it from occurring again. Seeing the slow shifts in people’s behavior and mindset makes all the difference in this work! It takes time and hard work, but the reward from getting to experience it keeps you motivated day after day.

Ungulate leg remaining at a kill site (either mountain goat or bighorn sheep)

To wrap up this month, Nate and I were out doing tracking surveys in a remote part of the Wood River Valley, accompanied by Nate’s research partner from Ethiopia. We have been curious about the borderlands of the project, and want to better understand the corridors wolves use to cross into and out of the project area. We kept looking for mountain goats in the hope we would see one of them. As we neared the top of the pass, I saw something large running among the rocks. Putting my binoculars up to my eyes, the creature started running towards us. “It’s a goat!” shouted Nate. “It’s a lion?” I questioned. “Nope, it’s a wolf.” As the exciting words flew from my mouth, the wolf spun a 180 as it realized we were humans, and began sprinting away to the far side of the pass. I tried to follow it from behind, but it was far gone by the time I reached the pass. These canids can travel up to 30 miles a day, so I wasn’t surprised when I didn’t catch up to it. In its place lay a semi-old kill site that the wolf had presumably checked out. It remains to be seen whether these are mountain goat or bighorn sheep remains. As Nate and I looked at the remains, our friend spotted two mountain goats climbing the ridge above us. We then looked over the pass to see a herd of elk grazing below. It turned out to be an amazing day for wildlife viewing, and gave us important information about the movement ecology of wolves in the area.

On top of that, seeing that much wildlife with my own two eyes always reconnects me to the importance of the work we are doing here. We want to see wolves here as a permanent fixture of the landscape. They breathe life into the wildlands of the West, allowing for riparian areas to thrive and keeping ungulate populations healthy. Wolves add to the mystique and wonder of the region, making us question what one might see around the corner. I want to live in a place where wild creatures still roam, and I wish that same joy on future generations. For that, I am grateful that I get to participate in a project like the Wood River Wolf Project because we continue to create the space necessary for wolves to thrive alongside humans.

Happy howls,

Logan Miller

Field Manager