https://www.jhnewsandguide.com...8d-add5c4ef9638.html



Popular Yellowstone wolf, 926F, falls to a hunter

By Mike Koshmrl Jackson Hole Daily Nov 29, 2018


A Lamar Valley wolf that gained major fanfare over the past seven years for a life lived in view of roads in Yellowstone National Park was killed recently by gunfire, Montana wildlife officials confirmed Thursday.

Until ceding the role to her daughter recently, the wolf known as 926F had been the alpha female of the Lamar Canyon Pack. A hunter killed the fifth-generation descendent of Yellowstone’s original transplanted wolves Saturday outside Cooke City, Montana.

“It was a legal harvest, and everything was legitimate about the way the wolf was taken,” said Abby Nelson, a wolf management specialist for Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks. “The circumstances are obviously a little bit harder for people to stomach, because that pack had showed signs of habituation.”


Wolf 926F died from the same thing as her equally famous mother, known as “06.” Both were casualties of state-sanctioned wolf hunts outside Yellowstone’s boundaries.

News of 926F’s death spread Wednesday, and it was difficult for some of the graying black wolf’s most faithful followers to take in. Gardiner, Montana, wildlife photographer Deby Dixon posted a farewell to the “fearless girl” who “stole our hearts” that generated hundreds of shares and comments.

Dixon looked back on the animal she spent hundreds of hours watching as brazen and resilient, having lost several mates and litters to wolf wars and disease.

“I always called her the little wolf that could,” Dixon said in an interview. “06 was well loved because she was bold and out there, but I don’t think that people got to watch her for as long as we watched this particular wolf.”

Longtime Yellowstone Wolf Project staffer and recent retiree Rick McIntyre said that 926F’s fame came from her bloodlines and her home range, having lived in the wildlife-watching mecca of the Lamar Valley her entire life.

“One of the big reasons 926 is so very important to so many people is her lineage, which goes back to the very beginning,” McIntyre said.

A small wolf, at just about 80 pounds, 926F was a great-great-great-grandaughter of wolf No. 9, part of the first batch of wolves reintroduced into Yellowstone from Alberta, Canada, 23 years ago. She also had family ties to the Druid Pack, whose visibility in the Lamar Valley fueled the wolf-watching sensation.


Since wolf hunting in Montana began nine years ago, hunters have killed wolves that have wandered outside the safety of Yellowstone with some regularity, despite slim quotas meant to protect park wolves.

Two hunt zones bordering the park’s northern boundary allow no more than four wolves to be killed total, conservative quotas relative to the rest of the state, which houses an estimated 900 lobos.

“We’ve worked hard with the Park Service to strike a compromise,” Nelson said.

Although opposed to wolf hunting at the park boundaries, Dixon asked her fellow wolf watchers to refrain from slinging mud.

“As advocates, we need to quit calling these hunters names and threatening their lives, and start focusing on education and teaching the truth about wolves,” she said. “We’re not going to change the minds of the die-hard wolf haters, but we can change the minds of their children.”

Contact Mike Koshmrl at 732-7067, env@jhnewsandguide.com or @JHNGenviro.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W_Ib0He7m48


Video of the wolf.

Wow what a load of Sh-t.

Imagine a few deer and elk are dancing a jig...

I'd have him mounted with the collar.

Grizz

You mean the animal rights crowd has not named her yet. Something like Cecilia might be appropriate for their cause.

Only 900 more to go!

up there..

Hermenegilda
Sounds tough

quote:

Originally posted by bwanamrm:
You mean the animal rights crowd has not named her yet. Something like Cecilia might be appropriate for their cause.

Oh they've named her alright---spitfre! They've also opened a GoFundMe account in her name with the idea that they are going to eliminate all wolf hunting in the future!

quote:

Originally posted by Topgun 30-06:

quote:

Originally posted by bwanamrm:
You mean the animal rights crowd has not named her yet. Something like Cecilia might be appropriate for their cause.

Oh they've named her alright---spitfre! They've also opened a GoFundMe account in her name with the idea that they are going to eliminate all wolf hunting in the future!

It has made 750 the first day.

New Disney movie? Never Cry Cecilia

Hmmm,

The "little wolf that could" huh?

Except when it came to stopping a bullet.

Oh wait, maybe it did stop it?

Or did it pass through?