Myth-Busting and the Great Gray Wolf

Filmmaker Ray Paunovich and soundman Kevin Sanders ventured into Yellowstone National Park’s Hayden Valley, accompanied by packhorses laden with expensive camera equipment. It was August 7, 1992, and they were working on a film about grizzly, black and polar bears. They were returning to Yellowstone to document grizzlies feeding on a bison carcass they had been observing for several days.

In the distance, they spotted what they thought was a hiker’s German shepherd alongside a coyote. But Paunovich soon realized it was Canis lupus: the gray wolf. The last wolves seen in Yellowstone — two pups — were killed by rangers in 1924. “There was no time for us to get off the horses, set up our equipment and start filming,” Paunovich recalls. “As soon as the animals noticed us, they took off.” 

The filmmakers hobbled their horses and hid in a small gully, peering over the edge to observe the carcass. They hoped the bears or the wolf would return. They spent the rest of the morning waiting, but nothing ventured near the decaying bison. 

They decided to visit the site the following morning. “Sure enough, the wolf returned, accompanied by the coyote,” Paunovich said. “The two canids moved around the bears, feeding on the carcass, sneaking in to grab a bite, and then running off to eat it elsewhere.” This time, they successfully captured the scene on film.

Paunovich then contacted the Hayden Valley District Ranger, who sought input from L. David Mech, the renowned wildlife biologist who has been studying wolves for more than 60 years. Mech made the long trip from Minnesota to Bozeman, Montana, to examine the footage frame by frame in Paunovich’s studio. After assessing tracks, discussing findings with Mech and reviewing photos, the National Park Service confirmed that it was, indeed, a “wild acting wolf,” not a hybrid, according to NPS documents. Rumors swirled from tourists and others, including tracks found by famous author, tracker and wildlife biologist James Halfpenny. They reported observing lone wolves in and around Yellowstone, however this incident marked the first documented wolf that appeared on its own and was “the beginning” of the most incredible untold success story — until Diane Boyd revealed it in her new book, A Woman Among Wolves.

The year 2025 marks the 30th anniversary of Yellowstone’s wolf reintroduction, an event most people think of as the return of wolves to the Lower 48. But many are unaware that wolves naturally returned to northwestern Montana a decade and a half before biologists and park employees carried in the first gray wolves and released them into the Yellowstone wilds in 1995. From the late 1970s to the early 1990s, wolves dispersed from Alberta and British Columbia into Montana, Idaho and Wyoming. 

Yellowstone’s wolf reintroduction story is so popular it has reached mythical proportions, obscuring the fact that wolves slowly dispersed south from Canada years before. Lone wolves were already connecting the lines to Yellowstone. Thirty years later, the return of wolves to Yellowstone and Central Idaho is regarded as one of the most successful conservation stories in the world, with more than 3,000 wolves now inhabiting the West. However, their reception varies.

Wolves evoke different sentiments among different people. They are neither the bloodthirsty savages some portray, nor are they "nature's saviors." Mech succinctly stated in a ScienceDirect article years ago: "Wolves are neither saints nor sinners,” he said, “except to those who want it so." Nevertheless, the mystique surrounding the wolf persists, and a dark cloud may always linger over its essential nature.

Wolves once inhabited nearly all of North America, ranging from Mexico City to the Arctic Ocean and from the Atlantic to the Pacific. By the 1930s, viable wolf populations had been completely extirpated from the western U.S., leaving only occasional dispersers migrating down from Canada and a few isolated remnant populations remaining in the Upper Midwest. 

The American environmental movement gained momentum in the early 1970s after writer and conservationist Rachel Carson published her acclaimed international bestseller, Silent Spring. Then, in 1974, gray wolves were federally listed as endangered. Efforts began in Alaska and Canada to encourage wolves to recolonize the western and southern provinces, and, as a result, wolves began to spill over into Montana. 

Boyd, the former wolf and carnivore specialist for Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks, played a key role in the wolf’s return to the contiguous U.S. After studying under Mech, a noted researcher who has studied wolves since the late 1950s, at the University of Minnesota in the mid-70s, she joined the University of Montana Wolf Ecology Project as a graduate student, helping to radio-collar the first wolf in the western U.S. Contrary to popular belief, this initial wolf was miles — and decades — away from the Yellowstone reintroduction efforts. "Wolves were making a strong comeback in Montana on their own, while Yellowstone was receiving all the attention for their reintroduction efforts," Boyd said. 

The first radio-collared wolf was nicknamed Kishinina after a creek in southeastern British Columbia that flows into Glacier National Park, where she was collared. She may have traveled from as far away as Banff, approximately 250 miles to the north. Kishinina was notable for her stunning silver coat and spent most of her time north of the Canadian border. A few years later, her radio collar failed, but a new male wolf — missing one toe on his front paw, likely due to evading a trap — showed up in Montana with her. Boyd and her team tracked both wolves. The wolves mated, and in 1982, Kishinina had seven pups 10 miles north of Glacier. The following June, when the pups were two months old, the male was killed, but Boyd continued to track Kishinina and her pups. 

Remarkably, Kishinina managed to keep the pups alive without her mate's help, and the group earned the name the "Magic pack." It was the first official wolf pack in the Rockies in the 50-plus years since humans extirpated them and showed nature’s power to overcome the odds all on its own. Boyd and her team collared a few of Kishinina's pups but over the next few years, the matriarch disappeared. Her offspring, however, gradually made their way into the northwestern corner of Glacier. According to Boyd, a different female, Phyllis, successfully denned in the park in 1986. 

As this pack grew, other wolves were discovered east of the park on the Blackfeet Reservation. However, when the U.S. Animal Damage Control, a federal authority that manages nuisance wildlife, killed those wolves no one knew how to respond. “Wolves were fully endangered, and no one knew the rules concerning depredation,” said Ed Bangs, former U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service gray wolf recovery coordinator. “As a result, the FWS established a position in northwestern Montana. I moved down from Alaska in 1988 to fill it.” 

The general public accepted the wolves that naturally migrated into Montana without human assistance, viewing them as part of a natural cycle that was not forcibly imposed on the locals. However, discussions and debates about the reintroduction of wolves to Yellowstone and central Idaho intensified as these wolves continued to disperse. In 1991, a wolf management committee was established, and Congress authorized the USFWS to conduct an environmental impact statement in 1992. Bangs was appointed to lead the effort.

In 1987, according to Boyd, a farmer near Pouce Coupe, B.C., spotted several wolves and shot one. The farmer noticed it was radio-collared. After he reported the incident to a game warden, data revealed that the two-year-old female, daughter of Phyllis, was born 10 miles north of Glacier National Park and ventured 540 miles north. This wolf was among the first wild-born radio-collared wolves in the West, highlighting the challenges wolves face in reclaiming their former habitats.

In June 1991, Canadian researchers led by wildlife biologist Paul Paquet, captured a female wolf named Pluie — "rain" in French — near Kananaskis Country, Alberta. Fitted with a radio collar and a satellite transmitter, Pluie traveled extensively over two years. Scientists estimate her first foray covered more than 1,600 miles. Her journey took her north to Jasper, Alberta, then down south across the border into Glacier, east to Browning, west into Idaho and Washington, then as far south as Bozeman. On her second foray, she repeated a shortened version of the trip before finally returning near Invermere, B.C., where she was shot. Her travels inspired scientists to create the idea behind the Yellowstone to Yukon Initiative, a conservation program aiming to protect wildlife and their habitat on a large scale.

In her memoir, Boyd shares her initial reluctance to support the reintroduction of wolves, noting that they were naturally recolonizing the West. She points out that several individuals had independently migrated to Idaho and Wyoming. For example, one male wolf she collared in Glacier wandered into Idaho’s Kelly Creek, where he lived alone for four years before eventually finding a reintroduced mate and raising a family. Additionally, Paunovich filmed the gray wolf in Yellowstone in 1992. A month later, a hunter illegally shot a black wolf in the Teton Wilderness, south of Yellowstone. Genetic testing confirmed this wolf was closely related to those in the Ninemile pack near Missoula, which had also naturally recolonized the region. 

Paquet, who has conducted wolf studies for more than 50 years, says Boyd’s research was ignored. “Many people had their fingers in their ears about what Diane and I were saying: that the wolves would naturally start coming down [from Canada],” Paquet said. “Many who acknowledged her findings were not convinced a natural recolonization was occurring beyond the North Fork or happening rapidly enough. I didn’t participate in the reintroduction because I thought it was probably unnecessary and that natural recolonization was happening. It just needed some time; it’s a matter of patience.” 

Mike Phillips and Doug Smith led the Yellowstone reintroduction efforts beginning in 1994. Numerous factors, Phillips says, played into the decision. “Reintroduction efforts moved forward on the belief that wolves would not disperse from northwest Montana in sufficient numbers and with sufficient success to ensure population establishment in the GYE and Central Idaho in a cost-effective and certain manner,” Phillips wrote in an email to Mountain Journal. “Beyond the limits of dispersal, reintroductions allowed released wolves and their progeny to be managed in a manner that was most accommodating of the needs and concerns of local citizens.”

Smith agreed, writing in an email that dispersal is a wolf’s method of reducing population density. “Wolf dispersal is kind of a population pressure release,” he wrote. “Instead of increasing density they spread out. Dispersing wolves also have lower survival, again lowering the population. Both of these things argued for more wolves to be used in the reintroduction to make sure the population would take hold.” 

Meanwhile, a Congress-mandated wolf reintroduction under a special Endangered Species Act provision that allows for flexible management of a listed species known as a "nonessential experimental population." This provision applies only when there is no established breeding population, which helps speed up efforts to save the population — a reintroduced population of a listed species that is not essential to the species' continued existence. Sure, wolves were dispersing long distances, and individuals were making it as far as Yellowstone, but none were breeding, at least according to genetic studies. “Reintroductions happen frequently with various species,” Bangs noted.

As support for the reintroduction grew over the years that followed, plans emerged to capture a total of 66 wolves, half from Hinton, Alberta, and half from Fort St. John, B.C. (where Phyllis’s pup with the radio collar was shot years earlier); another 10 were to come from the Sawtooth pack along Montana’s Rocky Mountain Front. Some members of the ranching community around Yellowstone and Idaho expressed concerns that this operation was an example of federal overreach. “People don’t like the government forcing things upon them,” Paquet explained. “This reflects the region’s political ideology. It felt like an imposition and intrusion.” 

Those in opposition to wolf reintroduction were alarmed about the species of wolves that would be introduced. Rumors and conspiracy theories proliferated, with some suggesting that these would be “Canadian super wolves,” which they believed were different from the original wolves that once lived in the area. Speculation arose that these “super wolves” weighed 175 pounds and had eight canine teeth. “They were considered very dangerous because [skeptics believe] the most aggressive wolves had been selected for reintroduction,” Boyd writes, “ensuring their survival regardless of circumstances.

“However, it’s important to note that one native wolf population spanned the area from Yellowstone to the Yukon, as demonstrated by their long-distance dispersal travels,” Boyd said.

Some hunters believe wolves have caused the decline in elk populations, but a 2016 study by FWP biologists and the University of Montana disproved this. Researchers radio-collared 286 elk calves and found that mountain lions were the primary predators during the first six months, while black bears were responsible for early calf deaths in their first month. However, mountain lions and wolves were found to be equally significant predators throughout an elk's first winter. Wolves, even in a pack, are not the most successful predators. Their success rate is around 15 percent.

Elk hunting has become more challenging due to the lack of publicly accessible lands and increased predator presence, but elk populations thrive. FWP reported the 2022 elk population in Montana was around 141,000, up from an estimated 8,000 a century ago and currently the second largest in North America, following Colorado. Since 2005, elk numbers have surged by 42 percent.

Bangs has heard some say elk have stopped bugling due to wolves, even though the two species have coexisted for hundreds of thousands of years. “Elk have been bugling their little hearts out long before people had bows and arrows.” When you observe wolves in Yellowstone, you'll notice that most elk ignore wolves when the latter approach a large herd. While elk may stop to watch, healthy individuals have little to fear. In his classic book Of Wolves and Men, Barry Lopez describes how wolves appear to “stare into an animal’s soul” upon encounter. Lopez refers to this moment as the “conversation of death.” A healthy animal may ignore the wolf or stand its ground, while an injured, old, or young one may unwittingly signal the wolf to chase by displaying erratic behavior.

“It’s a bit ludicrous to think that wolves have eaten all the game,” Boyd told me. “If the wolves eat everything, they will starve and die off because there’s nothing left to eat. Nobody managed the wolf populations when Lewis and Clark traveled through this territory. There was more big game [at that time] in North America than there ever was.” 

One common myth suggests wolves need management to prevent uncontrollable population growth that could deplete wildlife and threaten humans. However, Bangs explains that wolves effectively manage themselves. “Wolf populations expand by establishing new individuals in different areas, not by increasing the number of wolves in the same area,” he said. “The entire narrative around wolves and their management has no basis; it’s more about managing the symbolism of wolves.”

As Bangs suggests, the fear of wolves, often linked to fairy tales, can be alleviated with experience and knowledge. Many stories recount run-ins with howling wolves at night, where people assume the wolves surround them. In reality, this howling is more a form of communication among themselves than one forecasting assault. “The wolves are just trying to find each other because they are scared,” he said. “When you showed up, they all took off in different directions, and now they’re lonely and just trying to reassemble their group.”

Wolves rarely kill people. In the past century, 41 nonfatal wolf attacks in North America resulted in just two fatalities. Cattle stampedes kill about 20 people annually. Drowning or lightning strikes are more likely causes of death than wolf attacks. 

“If wolves wanted to kill people, there would be dead people everywhere,” Bangs said. Some also believe cows are easy targets for wolves. However, Bangs points out that it’s not that easy. “Cows are tough to kill,” he says, “like trying to attack a 55-gallon drum. Wolves can kill them, but cows do not just lie down and die.” 

Wolf populations are regulated by prey availability and territoriality. They cannot thrive everywhere, and western packs now primarily exist in mountainous, forested regions with abundant public land. Bangs says wolves were absent from Alaska’s Kenai Peninsula from 1920 to 1966 until a pair arrived from northern Alaska. By 1975, resident packs occupied all habitats, and the population remained stable. Similarly, after introducing 41 wolves to Yellowstone, their numbers in the park grew to around 165. “Eventually, they establish territories and start to fight with other packs,” Bangs said. “There are now roughly 124 wolves across 10 packs, reflecting the area's carrying capacity. Their numbers will continue to fluctuate around 100 due to how wolves manage their density.”

Since government agencies reintroduced wolves to Yellowstone, some wolf enthusiasts have popularized a scientific theory known as a trophic cascade. Ecological trophic cascades refer to a predator's significant impact on an ecosystem, influencing prey populations and their behavior and, in turn, the animals and plants further down the line. A YouTube video titled "How Wolves Change Rivers" has garnered more than 45 million views, supporting a controversial idea that wolves have restored Yellowstone's ecosystem. “Trophic cascades became a popular topic; the scientific theory has remained hotly debated in the scientific literature from the 2000s to the present,” Boyd writes. “The debate is not whether it occurs, but how great or small the effect is and how far through the system it can be tracked by the research.” 

The film claims that before the wolf reintroduction, elk populations surged due to the absence of natural predators in the park. This increase led to the overbrowsing of willows along streams and rivers, which in turn caused a decline in songbird populations and a drop in beaver numbers. When wolves returned, they began to hunt elk, reducing their population. This allowed willow stands to recover along the streambanks. As willows thrived, they stabilized the streambanks, providing beavers with more food and resources for building dams, which created habitats for various species, including songbirds, fish, moose, muskrats, and waterfowl.

Alongside the reintroduction of wolves, scientists also brought beavers back to the Absaroka-Beartooth National Forest, which borders Yellowstone. Coincidentally, as wolves dispersed, these beavers gradually made their way into the park, making it appear like one brought the other, but Boyd contends there were other factors.

“The reality is much more complex than this,” she writes. “Researchers … have shown that elk populations are affected by a combination of climate change, drought, fire, winter severity, grizzlies, black bears, mountain lions, coyotes and human hunters, in addition to wolves.”

Identifying which ecosystem component has the most impact on elk is not easy to discern. “Relationships between weather, plant productivity, animal nutrition, carnivore and elk use of space, and competition between several species of animals are intricately entwined,” Boyd writes.

"Wolves have held significant symbolism for humanity since ancient times, even before the advent of written records," Bangs says. "For hunter-gatherers, wolves embody admirable traits such as great parents, loyal mates, brave hunters and high endurance. They represent the ideal companions in a hunt. Conversely, for those who raise sheep, as depicted in Biblical narratives, wolves symbolize the darker aspects of human nature — the ultimate threat, often referred to as 'Satan’s animals.'” 

It can be difficult for individuals to examine their feelings about wolves in relation to their value systems. Often, people prefer to disregard fact in favor of emotion, allowing feelings and opinions to dominate judgment. As Mech says, "Wolves are neither saints nor sinners." They exist somewhere in the middle.