| Tom was a bit startled by my greeting: "Hurry! There's a wolf in our house!" and was ready to go before I had a chance to tell him the whole story. Meanwhile, Gary was getting things ready in case the wolf got more active. He put more wood in the stove, partitioned off the living room as best he could, and put breakable things aside. By the time Tom and I arrived, the thin chunks of ice that had covered the wolf's fur had melted off. We watched him sit up, look around, and walk over to the small space between the lounge and the stove. He lay down there, his head and shoulders leaning against the lounge, facing us. The three of us sat in the kitchen, whispering, wanting to bother him as little as possible. We felt excited, awestruck, and I, at least, a little apprehensive. What was the best thing to do? It was 3:30 on a Saturday morning. We thought our chances of finding a vet or a wolf researcher who could come would be remote. The attempt to find someone would mean a half-hour snowshoe to the truck and, if the truck started, another half-hour of driving to the nearest phone. We decided to wait until daylight. Our peeks into the living room were returned by a steady gaze from those bright golden eyes. Pretty soon the presence of a wolf in the living room was irresistible, and we went in to sit on the window bench just to be closer to him. Quietly, we kept company with the animal that had always seemed to us to represent the essence of wilderness. And we puzzled over the events that might have brought this creature to our home. His radio collar suggested answer. Maybe he had a history of contact with people that went beyond a single encounter with a wildlife research biologist. He certainly gave no indication of being upset by our presence. Twice Gary stood beside him to put more wood in the stove, and the wolf continued to lean against the lounge. We know wolves are social animals, able to communicate with facial expressions and posture and vocalizations. But this wolf merely looked about and took a few interested sniffs at pans of water and meat scraps. Still, he was alert to strange human noises: the clattering of pans, the fire burning, our talking. We began to feel hopeful. We had wonderful fantasies about a shy but friendly wolf recuperating with us until ready to return to the wild. We spent long moments just admiring him: the impress' breadth of his handsome head, the lush bunches of face ruff framing those compelling eyes, the grizzled fur luxuriously thick, right down to the black tip of his tail. Until now, our main contact with wolves had been restricted to seeing their tracks along our trails or following the frozen river, so we were especially interested in seeing wolf feet close up. Between long, supple-looking toes grew feathery tufts of reddish fur. And now we could see that he had lost part of a front foot. Had he been unable to hunt because of this? Maybe this was his problem. But we gradually became aware that his breathing, a little wheezy from the first, was becoming worse. After an hour or so, it was a terrible, deep gurgling. Gary went over and sat on the lounge. Gradually he moved closer until his hand was right beside the wolf's head. Then he stroked his head and ears. There was no reaction that we could see. Gary put a finger under the collar and thought it too tight for an animal having a hard time breathing. So when the wolf finally stood, with some effort, and slumped down to lie flat beside the stove, Gary used the pliers to take off the collar. Throughout this and all the other strange things that happened to him, that wolf never growled or so much as curled a lip at us, as he had so often done to the ravens. Nor did he act afraid. His well-worn radio collar was inscribed with the number 6530 and an address of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Thanks to the collar, we were to find that this animal truly was a wild wolf. But more than that, we were to have a fascinating glimpse of his roots. |
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| For more than twenty years research biologist L. David Mech has been studying timber wolves, first in Lake Superior's Isle Royale National Park, and more recently in northern Minnesota. One technique that he and his associates have perfected for wolf studies is radio telemetry. Wolves are trapped, anesthetized, radio-collared, and released. They can be located and observed by people with monitoring equipment. This yields invaluable insights into all aspects of wolf ecology, information that would be difficult or impossible to gain in any other way. Look back in Mech's records, to December 1973. A female wolf moves through the forest east of northern Minnesota's Iron Range. She has traveled alone for more than a year, roaming across vast stretches of the forested, rocky lake country of Superior National Forest. Her route has encompassed some 2,500 square miles. An encounter with a wildlife biologist's trap has left her with a radio collar that reveals her locations to aerial researchers and with a number for their records: 2473. |
Four years later the Perch Lake Pack is thriving. Wolf 2473 has a daughter who has become the pack's new alpha, or dominant, female. Her mate is the male who moved in after her father disappeared during the hunting and trapping season of 1974. From now until 1985, these two will be leaders of the pack and parents of all the offspring, many of whom will be carefully studied by researchers. Three pups born in the spring of 1982 were radio-collared. As most young wolves do, they eventually left their home territory, at different times and along varying routes. Male Wolf 6441 left the territory in May 1983, when just over a year old. Eight months later he was killed by a trapper in Ontario, 115 miles to the northeast. Female Wolf 6443 left when she was a year and a half old and settled just southeast of her home territory. She found a mate, but after their effort to raise pups apparently failed, she returned to her home territory alone. Since then she has been in the territory just to the south and west, usually alone. |
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| Now she meets a lone male wolf, and together they set up a territory. It meets their needs. Undefended by other wolf packs, its forty square miles provide adequate food for them and their pups. And in this sparsely settled area, activities of people and wolves will seldom conflict. In the spring, she bears their first litter of pups, and they become known to researchers as the Perch Lake Pack. |