Famous Yellowstone National Park Wolf Shot and Left to Die

The alpha female of the Canyon Pack

I was saddened to hear a month ago that the alpha female of the Canyon Pack had died.  She was a very popular wolf and one of only a few with white coats.  In the photo above, she was only three years old.  The little bit of dark fur you see in this photo was replaced by white fur as she matured.

It was reported that she had lived twelve years.  That’s a long life for a wolf.  The average life span for a wolf in the park is six years.  I assumed then that she had died of old age/natural causes.

I first got to know her in October of 2008.  She and her three pack mates had killed a bull elk at the north end of North Twin Lake the day before I happened on the scene.  When I arrived there was a large male grizzly protecting the carcass from the wolves.  I was told he took the carcass from them shortly after they had killed it.  That is very common.  Some grizzlies in Yellowstone have learned to follow wolf packs for days until the wolves make a kill and then they take over.

I learned yesterday that she had not died of natural causes.  She had been shot and was found by some hikers.  She was alive, but in bad shape.  The hikers contacted the National Park Service which examined her and determined that she could not be saved.  She was euthanized.  I went from being sad to being angry.

NPS has posted a reward for $5,000 leading to the arrest and conviction of the person responsible.  That amount was matched by a conservation organization, Wolves of the Rockies.  I was told by a friend that the reward has since climbed to $20,000.  You can read more about the story here.

In spite of many suits by conservation organizations to keep wolves protected under the Endangered Species Act, I believe they are no longer under its protection.  However, the wolf was found inside the boundaries of Yellowstone National Park.  NPS has regulations against discharging firearms and killing wildlife in the national parks.  Hopefully, the culprit will be found and successfully prosecuted.

Point Reyes. Should Elk Be Fenced In? Executive Summary

[That last post about elk fencing was pretty long.   Here’s a much shorter version that I’ll call an “Executive Summary.”  The next two paragraphs are basically the same as the original, but after that, the following 6 paragraphs replace over 50 paragraphs in the original post.] 

As if we didn’t already have enough signs in west Marin about oyster farming in the Seashore, there are new signs popping up about elk and putting them behind a fence.  The new signs say:  “Let’s protect / both elk and cow / time to build / elk fences now.”

Photo of a row of signs favoring fencing elk.
“Elk Fences Now”

What’s it all about?  In a nutshell, there are some ranchers and dairy farmers in the Point Reyes National Seashore who use park land for ranching and dairying under leases and permits from the Park Service.  They and/or their employees live on those lands.  Tule elk also exist on some of those park lands.  Some or all of the ranchers want the Park Service to get them off those lands because the elk eat grass, as part of their diet, and they drink water.  The ranchers claim to own all the grass and water.  Their solution is for the Park Service to build a fence in the park’s wilderness area and put the elk behind the fence. I should add that the Park Service has initiated a planning process to develop a new ranch management plan for the Seashore and elk will be addressed in the plan. In that sense, the signs are timely and the ranchers are lobbying the public for their fencing idea. But the signs raise some serious questions. Would a fence work?  Would it be a good idea?  Are there legal issues?  Policy issues?

First of all, a barbed wire fence won’t work.  You would have to build a woven wire fence 8 feet tall.  See photo.  This kind of fence is designed to keep wildlife from getting out or in.  It’s also referred to as an enclosure fence or an exclosure fence depending on whether the  intent is to keep wildlife in or out.  Regardless of intent, it prevents all animals from traveling in either direction.

Photo of the elk containment fence at Tomales Point.
Enclosure Fence

Would it work?  There are two ways to try to fence the elk (and the other wildlife).  You could build a boundary fence between the wilderness and the ranching area or you could build an enclosure fence in or around the wilderness.  A boundary fence wouldn’t work because the elk could just walk around either end of it.  An enclosure fence might work, but it would have other problems as discussed below.

Would an enclosure fence be a good idea?    No, for several reasons.  Point Reyes is a national park. The wildlife in a national park should not be locked up.  Parks are the antithesis of zoos.  No other national park has locked up any wildlife that I know of.  It would also be harmful to the wildlife.  The fence would divide the home range or territory of many wild animals. That would cause conflict, death and reduced carrying capacities.  The fence would also have a very negative effect on the visitor experience and the aesthetics of the park, especially where any fence crossed a beach or hiking trail or ran parallel to a beach, hiking trail or road.  The enclosure would also be very expensive to build and maintain.  If the entire central and southeast wilderness units were enclosed in a large fence, the fence would be roughly 38 miles long if built on a straight line.  Given elevation changes, the need to go around areas rather than through them due to rocky ground and heavy vegetation, and the very irregular boundary line of the wilderness, the length of the fence would be much more than any straight-line estimation.  50% longer would be as good a guess as any.  There would also be a need to acquire easements to the extent the fence had to cross private lands, such as the Vedanta Society’s Retreat Site near Olema.  The cost should be borne by the ranchers since they are the only ones to benefit from the fence.

Are there any legal issues standing in the way of the elk enclosure?  Yes, I think so.  The Park Service’s Organic Act states that the Park Service must “conserve the scenery and the natural and historic objects and the wild life [sic] therein ….” 16 U.S.C. Section 1. An 8-foot tall woven wire fence designed to limit the movement of wildlife doesn’t conserve the scenery or the wildlife. It hurts both. The Point Reyes statute states that the Secretary shall administer the property “without impairment of its natural values.” 16 U.S.C. § 459c-6. Wildlife is clearly one of its natural values. The enclosure fence would clearly impair necessary wildlife movement. That’s the very purpose of it – to lock the wildlife up much like livestock or animals in a zoo.  The Wilderness Act is another problem.  An 8-foot tall woven wire fence, with all the wildlife therein locked up inside it, and the wildlife outside it unable to move through it, would conflict with the very definition of wilderness in the Act.  Among other things, the area would no longer be “without permanent improvements” or “managed so as to preserve its natural conditions”  or “with the imprint of man’s work substantially unnoticeable.”   16 U.S.C. § 1131(c).

Are there any policy issues regarding this fencing idea?  Yes.  The Park Service has a formal national policy to the effect that it will not maintain captive herds of wildlife for the enjoyment of the public, but that it instead maintains wild populations within natural habitats. This policy is referenced in the 1998 Elk Management Plan, page 54, and would seem to prohibit the construction of any enclosure fence. Consistent with the policy, the Park Service stated, in describing the alternative which was chosen in the 1998 Elk Management Plan, that “[t]he Seashore will not attempt to establish new herds that require permanently fenced, restricted ranges.” Id., at 46. I would add here that building the fence would likely violate the Park Service Organic Act, the Point Reyes legislation and the Wilderness Act; all good reasons to have formulated the policy.

In summary, I think this fencing idea is prohibited by law and Park Service policy.  Plus, it would be very harmful to wildlife (the reason for the policy), negatively impact visitor experiences, and be very costly.  If built, it should be paid for by the ranchers because they are the only ones who want to lock up the elk (and other wildlife).   Assuming the fence would run for about 57 miles (my guesstimate) and given the lack of roads and the prohibitions in the Wilderness Act regarding roads (temporary or permanent) and use of mechanized equipment, I think the fence would cost in excess of a million dollars.  It could be much more.  It’s also unlikely anyone would bid on the job if the Wilderness Act requires it to be built with hand labor only.  If you’re interested in more detail, read my previous blog.

Mountain Goat, Yellowstone National Park

Photo of mountain goat.
Billy Goat, Golden Gate Area

I haven’t been blogging much in the past year.  There have been two reasons.  The first reason was the constant theft of my images. The second reason was that I was growing a bit tired of feeling pressured to post something on a regular basis.  So, I let things slide.  I did go back and put a big copyright symbol on the photos that I had previously posted, but that didn’t leave me feeling all that satisfied about the theft problem because the big copyright symbol made the photos look pretty bad.  I’ve changed that to what you see here.  Maybe I’ll be more happy with this copyright style as time goes by.  I say “as time goes by” because I’m feeling a little more enthused about getting back to blogging.

One reason I’m enthused is that I just spent a month in Yellowstone.  Spring is my favorite time there because of all the baby animals.  I think this was the most successful spring trip I’ve had there.  One of the high points was seeing mountain goats in an area where I had never seen them before, and, more important, at distances that made photographing them feasible.  The area I’m speaking of is the Golden Gate.  It’s called the Golden Gate because of the color of the rocks.  If you aren’t familiar with where the Golden Gate is, it’s the canyon area you drive through just before you reach Swan Lake Flat (when driving from Mammoth).

I saw and photographed a nice looking (full winter coat) nanny and her kid on two different days and then this billy at a later time.  Telling mountain goat males from females is not all that easy.  The horns are a way to identify male from females, but with goats it’s not real easy because there’s not a big difference in size between the horns of a billy and a nanny.  The horns of billy goats are much thicker at the base and more curved than are the horns of nannies and, in frontal views, the horns look like they are spaced very close together with the males.

Photo of a billy (male) mountain goat.
Billy or Nanny?

The males also have a shoulder hump.  Based on the thickness of the horns at the base, the curve of the horns and the shoulder hump, I think this is a billy.  He is also in the early stages of molting.  He will soon have a much shorter summer coat.  One of the things I like about mountain goats is that they often assume stances as though they’ve been posed by the photographer.

The Park Service says mountain goats are not native to Yellowstone, but the result of the introduction of mountain goats by the State of Montana in the 1940s and 1950s which became established in the northern portions of the park in the 1990s.  The Park Service also says they may be having a negative effect on bighorn sheep.  The Park Service is doing research now with other agencies on mountain goat ecology and to determine the effect of the goats on bighorn sheep.