Wolf News Roundup 6/6/2020
by Cat Urbigkit, Pinedale Online!
June 6, 2020
Missouri Family’s Wolf Encounter
Brett French has published an article in the Missoulian describing a Missouri family’s frightening encounter with a wolf in Yellowstone National Park last week. See the photos and read the details at the link below.
Gray Wolf in Utah
A dead calf in Rich County, Utah has been confirmed as a wolf kill, according to an article in the Salt Lake Tribune. Because the wolf is located in a portion of the state where federal protection for wolves is no longer in place, animal damage control officials are attempting to trap the wolf.
Wolf attacks man in British Columbia
An elderly man was attacked in a residential area of a small town in northern British Columbia in what Canadian wildlife officials call an unprovoked attack. After a hunt, wildlife officials killed an adult female wolf in the same area. Until tests reveal whether the dead wolf was the same animal that attacked the man, conservation officials will continue round-the-clock patrols of the Port Edward community.
Mexican wolves
Mexican wolves in the desert southwest got a boost to the population with the cross-foster of 20 wolf pups from captive wolves into litters of wild wolf packs. Over a six-week period in April and May, 12 pups were fostered into four different packs in eastern Arizona and eight were fostered into three packs in western New Mexico.
Cross-fostering is a proven method used by the Mexican Wolf Interagency Field Team (IFT) to increase genetic diversity in the wild Mexican wolf population. It involves placing genetically diverse pups less than 14 days old from captive breeding populations into wild dens with similarly aged pups to be raised as wild wolves. The IFT has documented that cross-fostered pups have the same survival rate as wild-born pups in their first year of life (about 50%), and survival rates using this technique are generally higher than other wolf release methods.
Check out the links below for more details on these stories.
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