JACKSON, Wyo. — Despite all the challenges that Wolf 1228F has faced in Yellowstone National Park (YNP), she’s the first alpha female in nearly 20 years to successfully establish a new pack with just a mate.
Kira Cassidy, research associate with the Yellowstone Wolf Project, tells Buckrail that every other new wolf pack in the last two decades had at least three founding wolf members.
“Yellowstone is a competitive environment and pairs are usually squeezed out by larger packs,” Cassidy says.
Cassidy emphasizes that measuring a wild animal’s “personality” can be difficult without introducing human biases; however, she also notes that in observing 1228F for the entire five years of her life so far, there are some events and successes that do stand out.
Although some females never disperse from their birth packs, which Cassidy attributes to the fact that wolf territories are passed down through the female line, 1228F officially dispersed in early 2022 at just under three years old. She mated with an unidentified black male wolf with gray and silver markings.
“The pair established a territory east of the Junction Butte pack’s territory in eastern Lamar Valley and Soda Butte Valley, and were named the Shrimp Lake pack for a small lake in the territory,” Cassidy says.
While establishing a territory right next to her natal pack might have originally afforded 1228F some territorial tolerance for the first year or so, Cassidy says 1228F is now only familiar with two wolves in the Junction Butte pack. Because of this, Cassidy says there’s potential for dangerous conflict between the two groups.
“The biggest challenge 1228F and her pack face are run-ins with other packs,” Cassidy says. “Pack-versus-pack conflict accounts for half of all wolf mortality.”
However, the Shrimp Lake pack might be more evenly matched with the Junction Butte pack than it has been in years past; 1228F’s pack has reached seven members, while the Junction Butte pack is now at nine.
While 1228F and her mate originally had a litter of three pups, Cassidy notes that one ended up disappearing. Cassidy then confirms 1228F’s mate was shot during the Wyoming wolf hunting season just outside of YNP in 2022, but 1228F was spotted with a new male within a few weeks. This new mate was also of unknown origin, but is now numbered 1488M.
The new mate and the two pups from 1228F’s first litter, female wolf 1487F and an unnamed gray male, survived the severe winter of 2022 to 2023 by scavenging on bison and bull elk carcasses. In the spring of 2023, the pack saw the addition of four pups born to 1228F, three of which were still alive at the end of the year.
But it’s not just other wolves that pose a threat to this persisting pack. Cassidy explains that hunting large ungulates is dangerous for wolves, and accounts for 15 percent of all wolf mortalities. Beyond the more natural threats, the surviving Shrimp members also face human-caused threats like poaching and vehicle collisions, although Cassidy says “1228F seems to be teaching her offspring how to navigate their territory and to avoid humans and safely cross roads only when necessary.”
Another vulnerability is that the Shrimp Lake territory slightly overlaps with YNP’s northeast boundary, which Cassidy emphasizes puts the pack at risk to mortality from wolf hunting in Montana or Wyoming.
In spite of the risks, Cassidy says 1228F has likely outlived all of her siblings except one, a brother known as 1273M who lives in the Rescue Creek pack. Cassidy and other biologists are waiting to see if this month brings any new pups for the Shrimp Lake wolves.
