This first report concerns the surviving "conditioned" offspring of the late Alpha female #16.

For quite a while wolf #196M has been attempting to join a pack of wolves known as the Mill Creek pack. Apparently the pack haven't let him join and he's been reduced to hanging out on the fringes of their territory. In spite of this though he has been observed on more than one occasion in the company of a few wolves thought to be members of that pack.

But male #196 has had a death threat hanging over his head since his release from Ted Turner's Ranch last December and last week Ed Bangs, wolf recovery coordinator for the U.S Fish and Wildlife Service, authorized Wildlife Services to shoot the young wolf ASAP. It seems that on June 17th wolf #196 was seen in very close proximity to the body of a recently killed calf - a confirmed wolf kill. And though there is no actual proof that #196 killed the calf, the conditions of his release allow for him to be destroyed anyway.

But as of today #196 has still not been killed. According to reports, just as Wildlife Services sharpshooters were about to shoot him last week, #196 suddenly bolted and disappeared into dense cover and could not be located again. But his houdini-like escape has only bought a short reprieve for the marked wolf. Wildlife Services is scheduled to begin tracking him again sometime this week and will continue until he has been killed.

My feelings on the killing of this wolf are that he should have been given the benefit of the doubt this one last time. If #196 was not the wolf responsible for the death of the calf and he was drawn to the scene because of the smell of the carcass or for some other reason, then yet another of our innocent wolves has been destroyed needlessly.

Wolf #195M, the soon-to-be sole surviving Sheep Mountain brother, has reclaimed his mother's old territory in the Paradise Valley and he is believed to have found a mate. Researchers also believe that #195 appears to be tending a den, although no pups have been observed yet. If he and his unidentified mate do have a litter then the genes of his mother and grandparents (Wolves #9 & #10) will have been passed down to one more generation. There is also a possibility that if #195 does have pups he and his new family will continue to carry on the Sheep Mountain pack name.

After wolf #196 has been killed there will only be two or possibly three surviving offspring left out of the three litters that female #16 produced during her all-too-short life. Besides wolf #195, there is wolf #164M, who has been the Alpha male of the Absaroka pack since early 2000. #164 dispersed from the Sheep Mountain pack right after the fall 1999 control action which killed five of his siblings and the Alpha male of the pack. #164 and his mate, female #153, who is probably female #9's daughter, have just produced their second litter. Both wolves were born in 1998.

Possibly the third and last surviving heir of female #16's is an uncollared male who was the only member of the Sheep Mt. pack to have escaped the final control action in May of 2000. The two or three year old male's whereabouts have been unknown since he disappeared from his pack during the capture attempts and unfortunately we will probably never know what became of him. But I'd like to believe that he is alive and well and out there somewhere.

In other news, because of inaccessible denning locations there has been very little progress in determining the actual number of pups born to Yellowstone's wolf packs this spring. To date a very low number of pups have been observed in several packs. And in a few other packs that were thought to have denned there are no pup confirmations at all. This does not necessarily mean that these packs don't have pups. It just means that so far no pups have been seen at the den sites.

There is still no pup confirmation for the Rose Creek pack, led by Alpha female #18, or for the break-away Tower Group. But the unknown Alpha female of the Tower Group is not believed to have had a litter, contrary to earlier reports.

Also, I have received varied information on the number of pups in the Druid Peak pack. According to one source Alpha female #42 has been confirmed to have 4 pups and female #103 is confirmed to have 3 for a total of 7. But another source claims that Alpha female #42 has 7 pups, 4 black and 3 gray and female #103 has 3 pups, all black, for a total of 10. I guess within the next couple of weeks we will learn the exact number of new little Druids.

There is also no news on female #9 or her granddaughter #77 and at this point I have no idea how much longer it will take to learn if there are any pups for that pack.