Wolf Watchers Pack Park at Yellowstone

Cliff Browne huddles against the cold air, his camera pointed toward two distant dots on a hazy horizon. Daylight has broken, and the gray wolves are showing themselves.

His voice fills with excitement as he begins counting them, but rises to little more than a whisper as he angles his head for a better view. “I love it!” he says. “I love it!”

Several wolves run across the snowy landscape before disappearing into the trees. Another takes it slow, plopping down in the powder. One howls.

On the northeast corner of the nation’s first national park, patient wildlife enthusiasts such as Browne have a front-row seat to watch the gray wolves’ sometimes controversial return to Yellowstone.

Wolf watchers spend hours to catch a glimpse of the animals. Some, like Browne, are here almost every day during winter, when their luck is generally good. Some wolves are black, helping them stand out against the snow. Elk fill the river bottom land near the road, providing at least the hope of a meal for wolf packs.

Some days are better than others, said Browne, of Cooke City, Mont., who has made a living selling the images of wolves he captures on film.

“You’ve got to put hours in. And sometimes, you might be here all day long and never see anything,” he said. “Sometimes, you think, ‘What a wasted day.’ But that’s part of the game.”

People come to Yellowstone expecting to see wildlife. But only in recent years has the public had any real chance of seeing gray wolves in their natural setting.

Once eradicated from the park, the wolves were brought back under a contentious reintroduction program that began in 1995. They now number more than 130 within the park, and more than 570 in Montana, Wyoming and Idaho. Nearly 90%--including those in the park--can be traced directly to the reintroduction program.

But their return has not been without critics. Ranchers blame wolves for livestock losses and occasional attacks on domestic pets.

Defenders of Wildlife, which compensates ranchers for livestock lost to wolves, has paid out more than $206,000 to 180 ranchers since 1987.

Doug Smith, who heads the park’s wolf project, said those who care about the wolves see something special in the animals, something worth braving cold mountain winters to witness.

“Wolves are considered now to be the symbol of wildness,” he said. “There’s kind of magic in their eyes. There’s some kind of mysteriousness that people find alluring and worthy of protection.”

Researcher Rick McIntyre is so taken with the wolves that he spends days off from his seasonal work with Yellowstone’s wolf program to watch them.

He notes such things as their interactions and movements, and speaks of observed playfulness or a recent elk kill. He sometimes uses a hand-held radio to communicate with other wolf watchers.

“There is so much fascinating behavior you can see here,” McIntyre said. “In the rest of the world, it’s very, very difficult to see a wolf. Here, there are times when they’re visible almost all day long.”

The Lamar Valley region is home to several wolf packs, said Ed Bangs, wolf recovery coordinator for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Their movements can be unpredictable. One of the Yellowstone packs, known as the Nez Perce pack, left the park last year and traveled as far as eastern Idaho. It killed a dog and got into a fight with another wolf pack before returning to Yellowstone.

For many, wolf-watching is a matter of chance. For others, it’s a family hobby. Sally and Larry Miller of Great Falls, Mont., try to come to the park a few times each year.

“To me,” Sally Miller said, “[wolves] bring back the balance of nature that’s been missing for so long from the park.”