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Wolves of Yellowstone:
Science, Stewardship, and Civic Engagement

Christopher Whitfield - Political Science and Economics

May 30, 2006—Travel Day

Today we began the trip by going on three flights from Louisville, to Chicago, to Salt Lake City and then finally to Bozeman, Montana. After the drive to Yellowstone, we barely arrived in time for our class to begin at 7:00 p.m. MDT. Everyone taking the class introduced him or herself, and we found that besides the four of us from Western there were students from Arkansas, Oklahoma and Colorado that were taking the class as well.

To begin with, our instructor Jim Garry went through some basic handouts that we would need before we went out in the field to look for wolves the next morning. The documents consisted of a page listing the proper names for the wolves (Canis lupus) along with the kingdom, class, etc. The other documents had interesting facts about the wolves that told of their development over time, and a page outlining the wolf’s first year development. It is interesting that when the wolf is born that it only weighs about 1 pound and its eyes do not even open for 11-25 days. The development of the wolf was definitely the most surprising to me because it is somewhat slow. He even referenced that a young wolf is much like a teenager in that it is often gangly, and a little too excited when put out on the field to do hunting and other things on its own.

Wolves are very family oriented and stay in their packs. Sometimes one or two will break off, but this is and oddity and not the norm. The wolves have an alpha male and an alpha female that act as the leaders, and are also supposed to be the only ones in the pack that breed.

We further learned how to tell a wolf from a coyote when we would go out into the park looking for wolves. They are pretty similar, and since we would be looking at a distance it may have been hard to tell the difference. The major differences are that the wolf is much larger and usually has gray to black hair, while the coyote is about a foot shorter and not as long by two feet, with light brown/gray coloring. Wolves were re-introduced into the park in 1995 and 1996 after humans had killed them off in the 1920’s. The difficult part of re-introducing them is that around Yellowstone is still very rural and filled with cattle ranchers. The ranchers are of course concerned that the wolves will and have been attacking their cattle, causing them distress.

Read about the other students experience on the same day:

Cabrina Hamilton, Biology

Michelle Hart, Education

Adam Turner, Biology and Political Science

Read Chris’s next journal entry