Return of the Yellowstone Wolves

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"Howling will be just about the only way most people will know wolves are here," said Bishop. "Their songs will add a lot to the experience of sitting around the campfire. In Canada, some parks even offer programs where visitors get to go out and sing along with the pack—it's easy to learn."

Howls, which warn away strange wolves and help pack members locate one another, also express the complex relationships of dependence and dominance in each group. The social bonds, skills and discipline vital to the pack's communal hunting and pup rearing are forged early by its strict chain of command. An average pack has six to eight members—usually the alpha, or dominant, couple, their pups, those pups' adult siblings and, occasionally, unrelated others. This tight roster suggests a hard fact of hierarchical lupine life: Generally only the male and female leaders breed. With some exceptions, others who attempt to mate leave or are driven off to face huge odds against survival on their own.

Considering the stern controls on breeding and the consequences of violating them, it's perhaps for the best that mating season is only three months long-"the mean date is Valentine's Day," said Bishop. As is often the case among mammals, the female is in charge. Her blood in the snow interests the male. Once she has his attention, she initiates courtship by rubbing and licking his face and body. Their copulation is prolonged, probably to reinforce the alpha bond, and therefore the pack's bond.

At Hellroaring Creek, we stopped to examine the crags and caves in the nearby rocky slopes that help make this area another likely wolf habitat. "Even in ideal circumstances like one of those caves, of the five or six pups born in the spring, just two or three will make it to winter," said Bishop. "Perhaps only one to the following spring."

Because the survival of the young is essential to that of the pack, they're top priority to every member. In addition to feeding weaned youngsters with regurgitated meat from kills, nonparental adults also play with the pups and put up with their nonsense. In fact, a pack seems to spend a lot of time just fooling around. "Sociability and team effort are so important that a wolf who's aggressive and nasty will be shoved out, a 'lone wolf,"' said Bishop. "If he's ornery, an old wolf may be driven off instead of having allowances made for him, like being waited for on the trail."

Before such details of lupine social life can be observed again at Yellowstone, the park's new wolves must be made to feel at home. In one likely scenario, said Bishop, seven or eight grays from a Canadian park would spend their first few months in a large, remote enclosure, getting used to the Yellowstone environment before being released. The wolves will wear radio collars to aid location, perhaps ones rigged with a sedative dart so any emergencies could be handled by remote control. Aside from these early interventions, says Bishop, the wolves will be managed with a hands-off approach.

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