Male 123 Searches for a Mate

Number 123M dispersed from the Soda Butte Pack, apparently in search of a mate.  With mating season just around the corner in February, 123M left his pack in the Jackson Hole area and turned up in the last couple of weeks on the Northern Range.  Sightings of 123M have mainly been in the lower stretches of the Lamar Valley.  This area is considered part of the Rose Creek Pack territory, and in fact it has been the Rose Creek Pack on whom 123M has been concentrating his efforts.

He has been seen alone, I observed on the 22nd of January howling to the Rose Creek Pack, as well as with other wolves.  Field observers have reported him more recently with female 077F, a yearling from Rose Creek.  Before I saw him others observed him with other females, all black and believed to be yearling females from the Rose Creek Pack.  The sporadic nature of his associations suggests his courtship with any and all of these potential mates has had uncertain results.  In other words, a bond with one or more of these females has not been firmly established.  He appears to be persisting with undaunted courage.

This type of courting in which a male woos one or more females from a pack is considered dangerous due to the chance of males from the pack catching up to the interloper and injuring or even killing him.  The current on-going saga of 123M has shades of 034M's (Chief Joseph alpha male) successful but costly attempt to find a mate among the Rose Creek Pack in 1997.

When I saw 123M, a handsome gray male, he was near to the Rose Creek Pack and audibly seeking contact with them.  More intimate contact between the two was prevented it seemed in this case by their being separated by the road.  Later in the morning, the Druid Peak Pack appeared across the valley and engaged Rose in a classic howling match.  Where 123M's message ended up in that howling fray is anybody's guess.  Potential mates lie in both packs, though danger certainly lurks in every close contact he has with these packs.

N.V.