Hey gang, Ed the Fed here. Welcome to the first
episode of Season 3 of Nature's Secret Service.
I want to thank each and every one of you for
hanging in there as a fan and for doing whatever
you can to help me grow the listener base. Before
we get started, I want to make a correction for
an error in a previous episode. Loyal listener
Jeff H. from Wisconsin caught an error in the
Ambush episode of Season 2. In describing the
area where Special Agent Vic Blasevik worked
when he was ambushed and shot by duck poachers,
I described Illinois as falling within the Central
Flyway for migratory birds. Illinois actually
falls within the Mississippi Flyway. The Central
Flyway is farther to the west. Great catch, Jeff,
and thank you for taking the time to email me
with that correction. Considering I was a U .S.
Fish and Wildlife Service Special Agent and a
really critical aspect of my job was protecting
migratory birds, I felt pretty stupid for making
that mistake, but I'm very happy to be correcting
it now. Alright people, it's time for the premiere
of Season 3, Wolves. Here. We. Go. Okay, people
listen up. Here we go. This is Nature's Secret
Service, the podcast that puts you in the room
with the men and women of wildlife law enforcement.
I'm your host, Ed Newcomer. And this is the first
episode of season three, which as I've told everybody
is completely devoted to wolf reintroduction.
and the many law enforcement cases that have
resulted around the protection of wolves in the
Western United States. I thought today it would
be best to start season three with an interview
with Rick McIntyre. Rick is probably one of the
best known wolf ecologists, observers in the
world. He's written many books about wolves and
he was nice enough to Invite me to his home in
Montana to record this very first episode of
season three. Rick McIntyre, thank you so much
for being on the show. I appreciate it. You welcome
that. And you can see the cabin here is a little
on the motto side. It's I'm not one of those
billionaires that moved to Montana. I absolutely
love it. It's honestly we in some of your books.
you have referenced your cabin here in Montana.
And this is exactly how I picture it, which is
perfect. I would I would love to switch places
with you, honestly. Thank you. And, you know,
let me just say as an introduction, one of the
things that really struck me, Rick, is that in
one of your books, Jane Goodall introduced actually
does a what do they call that an introduction
for you in one of your books? And she described
you as the ultimate wolf guru. And I have to
say, that's high praise from a woman who basically
changed the way we look at animal behavior and
animal observations. That's pretty neat. Yes.
And to tell the truth, I don't even know what
to put into words for that. I never really expected
that. And Yeah, you just totally blew me away.
I mean, that's the person I respect most in the
world. So what can I say? I'm very thankful,
very humbled by it. And it says a lot about you
and your reputation in the, you know, biology
community, the community of biologists who are
interested not just in wolves, but in, you know,
animal conservation, wildlife conservation all
over the world. Thank you. Now, you know, the
reason that I If this will interest you, last
summer, the reason I came up with the idea to
do an entire season dedicated to wolves last
summer, my niece and I, we visited Yellowstone
National Park. And on the way here, we drove.
We listened to the book you wrote about wolf
eight and we had it on audiobook and we listened
to it the whole time. And at some point, while
we were in the park looking for wolves ourselves,
we just. I said, you know, I should do a whole
episode about wolves. And I said to my niece,
I said, I wonder if I could get Rick McIntyre
to be on the show. So this is a this is a big
deal for me. I'm a little starstruck, but I'm
really glad to have you here. Tell us a little
bit about how you got into watching wolves and
documenting what wolves do. Where did you get
your first experience with that? Well, I started
by saying I have very different different background.
Then people like Dave Meads, Doug Smith, Mike
Phillips, etc. I grew up in a rural part of Massachusetts,
so I was outside all the time, fishing, watching
animals, etc. And I was very influenced by Thoreau's
book Walden. I lived just down the road from
Walden Pond. I think I read that maybe when I
was a junior in high school. And prior to that,
I really didn't have much of an idea what to
do for colleges, what major, what career. And
that really helped me. And I didn't really know
that much about what different majors there were
in state colleges. I was interested in going
to what now is called University of Massachusetts
Amherst. But they did have a forestry major,
and that seemed to be maybe the closest to what
Thoreau was doing. He wrote a lot about trees,
just maybe less about wildlife. There's probably
a lot of things that have been shot and killed
already there. So I was a major in forestry.
And then I was very lucky for three summers,
starting after my freshman year, I worked for
the US Forest Service on the White Mountain National
Forest in neighboring New Hampshire. So that's,
I guess, where my outdoor resource management
connected career began. And I'm still not sure
how this happened. And in a way, it's not quite
logical. But I got an offer to go to Alaska at
Denali. And that was my first park service naturalist
job. By that time, I'd already worked in some
remote areas. The guy in charge, Bill Truesdell,
the chief naturalist, he'd already asked me,
do you mind working in remote areas and living
in remote areas? And I said, no, please let me
do that. And he said, well, we have this visitor
center. It's 66 miles out. It's my Olsen visitor
center. There's quarters in the basement. One
naturalist is there and one maintenance worker.
Would that work for you? Yeah, sign me up for
that. Nice. So right away, even though I was
a new guy, there was a big turnover that year,
even though I was a new guy, I was in this primo
position. And that was the first summer that
I saw wolves. And you were working there as a
naturalist. Yeah. So was your encounter with
wolves there just, you know, coincidental with
you being a naturalist or was part of your job
associated with the wolves? Well, let's see.
At that time, 1976, wolves were pretty hard to
see. Whereas you pretty much could see grizzlies
every day, moose, scaraboo, doll sheep every
day. So no offense to any of those animals. I
wouldn't want to give offense to a grizzly bear.
Definitely not. Yeah, wolves were in a whole
different category. And so I remember I was in
the visitor center in my ranger uniform and there
was a report of two wolves down the road like
30 miles. And it happened to be a period in the
afternoon where they didn't need me to be there.
You may know in the Park Service we have something
called roving interpretation. Right. So that's
when you're away from the visitor center, the
campground, whatever. You go out to where the
people are. And you're kind of like a street
preacher where you say, folks, come on over here
and we're going to do a talk on bears or whatever.
Right. So it is valid to go to where the people
are. So anyway, I got out there just in time
to get a glimpse of two wolves that were trying
to get a moose calf. It was maybe only a few
minutes, but I got to see wolves. And that was
it for that year. Wow. You know, I ended up being
there for 15 seasons. Right. And You may or may
not be familiar with Gordon Haber. He was an
independent wolf researcher back then. And so
I got to know him. He gave me some tips on where
to look. I got to know Dave Meach. He was considered
the top wolf biologist in the world. And so over
the years that I worked there, I gradually learned
how to... do better at finding wolves. This might
be a good place to talk about kind of the history
of wolves in the U .S. and kind of where we were
at that time, 1976, mid -70s. You were up in
Denali in Alaska. There were wolves there. There
still are wolves up there. But in the lower 48
states, can you just kind of describe the situation
that wolves were in in the 70s and how they got
there just briefly? Yeah, I actually did a lot
of research on that in later years for some books
that I was writing. When Europeans first came
to North America, whales were a very common animal.
And as Europeans settled, starting with the East
Coast, I came across a reference that in, I think
it was in the 1600s, what is now New York City.
The Dutch government, they controlled New York
at that time, and the citizens were so worried
about having wolves on Manhattan Island that
they offered to pay you gold coins for every
wolf that you killed in New York City. Bounty
in New York City on wolves. So if they had wolves
on Manhattan Island, there were wolves everywhere.
There were wolves everywhere. Yeah. I think it's
fair to say by that time, certainly English people
and most other folks from European countries,
they couldn't conceive of a more backward place
to civilize a place that still had wolves, whereas
they had already gotten rid of them. Yeah, what
you're describing is really like the very earliest
stages of European settlers' war on wolves. And
once we became a country in the United States,
That really became U .S. policy in the western
United States to destroy predators in general.
So to jump from Manhattan to places like Yellowstone
is not that much of a jump. So both in Denali
here, all the major national parks that originally
had wolf populations, even the National Park
Rangers, felt that the right thing to do was
to kill them off. Now, if you could go back and
interview those Rangers, they wouldn't be able
to understand. Well, why would you object to
that? Right. Yeah. So I think the way to explain
it is to them, their job was to protect the quote
unquote good animals. Right. The animals that
people. could make use of, could eat them, could
use their pelts, etc. Even though yellowstone
hunting was prohibited, they still had the sense
we need to protect all these ungulates, these
plantain animals. And so there was a big problem
with poachers coming in at that time, particularly
killing bison because they could get a ton of
money for a bison head and skull and everything.
So it was the Wild West back then in Yellowstone,
and those were extremely dangerous guys. So the
Rangers back then were big, big, big heroes that
that should be at the Yellowstone show. Not that
I'm telling you, you know, it's funny you say
that because on previous episodes of my podcast,
we have talked about the earliest. law enforcement
officers in the U .S. for wildlife. And it was
a super dangerous job. And a lot of them got
killed and gotten shootouts. And the wildlife,
as you talk about the good animals, there, you
know, around the turn of the century, 1900, there
were there was a huge market for them for restaurants
in the East Coast, you know, where market animals
from elk and deer and bison and ducks and geese
would end up. commercialized and it was causing
widespread, you know, destruction of wildlife.
Yeah. So yeah, you're right. I mean, the war
on predators was really to protect some of those
interests. But it was it was pretty pervasive.
When was the last wolf in Yellowstone eliminated?
To get here, you likely drove past the spot.
Do you remember Soda Butte Cone in Lamar Valley?
The story, as we understand it, is in 1926. the
local rangers that were stationed in that valley.
I don't know if they deliberately shot a bison
to lure the wolves in or if it died on its own,
but they surrounded it with steel wolf traps.
Whatever day it was, they came out two wolves
were trapped. They were shot and killed. And
as far as we know, that was it. 1926 was the
last. One of the great things for us that you
know that background is we oftentimes see walls
very close to that rock foam, that geothermal
formation, and that would be the Junction Butte
Pack. And for many years, the Crystal Creek Pack
lived there, then the Jewett Peak Pack, some
of our most famous packs, most famous walls.
So, of course, none of those wolves know any
of that history, but for us, it's really something.
What's your understanding? Yeah, you know, I
think 1926 is kind of it's certain. That's when
we think wolves disappeared from Yellowstone.
But, you know, it's within 10 or 15 years of
that either way that pretty much wolves were
extirpated from the entire Western U .S. with
the exception of, you know, small pocket and
Great Lakes area. What what's your understanding
of what happened in Yellowstone Park once wolves
were eliminated? Well, one thing for sure was
that the elk population exploded in numbers,
right? And it's hard to believe this now. And
because it seems such a strange thing, but. When
I started in here in 94, there was an older guy,
Ranger, who had retired and he had worked in
Yellowstone when he was younger. And he said,
I guess it was back in the 60s, he was issued
a rifle and was told, hey, whenever you have
time, especially in the winter. just pull up
along the side of the road and shoot and kill
as many elk as you can. Wow. That was their program
to alleviate what they acknowledge was an overpopulation
of elk. And what I mean by that is and you're
probably familiar with this. They were doing
a lot of damage to edible species such as aspen
and willow. Right. And in my early years, I would
take people on nature walks to a site where some
of the first walls were released in 95, the Crystal
Creek pack. And literally every one of those
shoots had been browsed to death. Every one of
them. Interesting. And aspens don't live long.
And so we're getting pretty close to the point
where those elderly trees were dying. And if
enough of them died, that's it. Period. There's
no more aspens, at least in that place. So Then
within a few years, I would continue to either
hike up there on my own or take people there.
And there was just a dramatic transformation
that now those chutes were surviving. And the
last few times that I went up there, what I would
have called chutes 10, 15 years ago, they're
20, 25 feet tall. the growth is so dense, you
can hardly walk through them. It's like a bamboo
forest. And so aspen is a great food for all
plant -eating species and of course good for
beaver as well. That was one of the things that
really struck me as I was kind of reading about
the history of wolves here in that, you know,
I think one of the unintended consequences of
the wolves coming and causing the elk to move
brings the aspen back. Nobody expected beavers
to spontaneously return to the park. They weren't
released or anything. They just showed up on
their own, which is pretty neat. Well, you think
if you're a beaver and you're smarter than the
average beaver, that's referenced if you know
who a yogi bear. Anyway, yeah, it's just an amazing
story, conservation story that And, you know,
in the big picture, just an example that we're
slowly moving forward, we're slowly advancing
in conservation and understanding how wild things
work. Because I'm sure if you interviewed park
rangers back in the 20s, you know, everyone would
have agreed, yeah, the right thing to do is let's
get rid of all these wolves as fast as we can
and then we'll have more elk. Right. What could
be wrong with that? Right. More out the better
for everyone. By the way, there's this great
story I found in my research. I think this was
in the late 30s. The guy that was the chief naturalist
at the time, I don't recall his name. He maybe
had a bit of a better science background than
most of the other Rangers and naturalists. And.
After work, he would just walk around Mammoth,
just stroll around. And there came a time where
he began to notice things. It started with just
a few elk that seemed to be sick, that seemed
to be in decline and then dying. And after a
while, there were more elk that went through
that and then more elk and more elk. And it was
some type of infectious disease. I'm not sure
if they knew what it was. Interesting. So they
were starting to see the ramifications of the
overpopulation. Well, here's the early as the
30s. Here's the point of the story. He did. And
there was some type of a science conference that
came up and it was based in Yellowstone. And
so naturalists and rangers and superintendents
from all over the country came here and he was
one of the scheduled speakers. And everything
went well until he got off to speed. And he essentially
said, you know, I've been thinking about this.
And he talked about how long he'd been in Yellowstone
and talked about his life in the Mammoth area.
Talked about strolling around in the evening,
seeing elk that had some type of a disease that
he now realized was contagious and how many elk
had died from that contagious disease. And this
was the point of his talk that just blew the
room apart. He said, you know, maybe, maybe if
we hadn't killed off all the wolves, those sick
elk would have been an easy prey to the wolves.
And if the wolves killed most of those initial
sick elk, maybe then that infection wouldn't
have spread. But at that time, What he said was
so...athema, is that the word? Yeah, right. That
shocked everybody. He literally had to resign
and leave. Wow. Yeah, they didn't want to hear
that. Wow. So they had really bought into, hey,
let's, you know, we got to keep on. We had to
kill the walls. Moral is better. After that,
yeah. That was the 30s, you said? That was the
late 30s, yeah. That's in the anthology I did,
War Against the Wolf, with the guy's name. One
of your other books, too, referenced that, you
know, around mid 1940s Aldo Leopold started to
recommend bringing wolves back to Yellowstone.
So I think you mentioned it was in your book.
You mentioned it was 1946 was when Aldo Leopold
first proposed it, I think. Yes. And that was
in a review of a wolf book that US Fish and Wildlife
guy had written. I forget the name of that. Yeah,
let's talk about Leopold for a moment. So yes,
he essentially said, you know, maybe we should
consider bringing Will's back to Yellowstone.
I don't know that he used the word reintroduction,
but he came up with the idea and he was very
highly respected. So this was maybe eight, ten
years after the previous story where the guy
was ridiculed. So he was very respected. And
that, let's just say with a flame that It took
some time, but it eventually caught on. Yeah,
and that's a good place to, I think, jump forward
a little bit in our story here in that I think
most of my listeners will know that in 1995,
the U .S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Park
Service collaborated to reintroduce wolves to
Yellowstone finally. I want to use that 50 years
after. Aldo Leopold proposed it again. And interestingly,
one of the things I loved about reading your
books is you kind of, I don't know if you remember
this because you've written so many books, but
you actually tell the story of how Aldo Leopold,
as a young ranger, actually killed a wolf in
New Mexico, I believe, and lived to regret it.
Yes, he famously said as he walked up to the
dying wolf, he saw a bright It's very emotional
to tell the story. It's emotional to read it.
Yeah. In the eyes of the wolf and then it died.
Yeah. And that's in his essay, Thinking Like
a Mountain. Right. And he was I'm sure you know,
a wildlife professor. And he was very, very influential.
And so he played a big, big role in. starting
to turn the tide on acceptance of wolves and
to see their value. But in that original essay,
in a way that anyone could understand it, not
in an academic way, he talked about killing off
all the wolves mean we're going to have a lot
more deer, and deer in that particular, I think
it was part of Arizona, and having Too many deer
is a bad thing, right? And he talked about the
damage that they did to eating too much of the
vegetation like we've been talking about with
the elk here So he could really see the big picture
and I think that's a really good way to phrase
this that the story about the Park Service guy
here that had to quit because all of his peers
could not see the big picture. They were not
ready to see the big picture. Yeah, not ready.
Yes. So he was ahead of his time by too many
years. And but I like to tell that story because
to give him credit for that. Absolutely. Yeah,
for sure. So this is this is actually good because
now now let's jump ahead to 1995. You've been
working seasonally in Denali for 15 years now
and have had a lot of experience observing wolves
up there. How is it you came to Yellowstone National
Park in mid 90s? I was well aware that they were
looking at bringing wolves back. Back then, my
winter job was on the Rio Grande River at Big
Bend National Park. And so I called up here and
I had always were, except for being a firefighter
my first year, my park service jobs were always
as a seasonal naturalist. So I called the chief
naturalist office here, ended up speaking to
the assistant chief naturalist Tom Tankersley.
And if you're a park service person, it's easy
to talk to other parks service person, you know,
you guys. Yeah, Fish and Wildlife is the same.
Yeah, we're all the same. Yeah, exactly. You
speak the same language. You kind of know. Yeah.
Yeah. And so, you know, right away, he understood
that I had 16 seasons worth of experience being
around wolves. Yeah. And all of those jobs were
essentially doing public programs, working with
the public. being a naturalist, et cetera. And
I had reinstatement status due to a brief permanent
federal job with the Forest Service. So he was
in a position where, because of that, he could
just hire me right off the bat. He didn't have
to check the register. And so we agreed that,
yes, he would bring me on for the summer of 94.
I would be called the wolf interpreter. And my
job would be everything I did would be on walls.
The big campfire programs with 400 people, nature
walks, you know, everything all about walls.
And it was an easy thing for me to to figure
out, well, here's how I'm going to do that. It's
the most natural thing in the world for me to
spend my whole summer every day in my ranger
uniform, talking to people and explaining the
Wolf Introduction. And then on January 12th of
95, I wasn't working in the winters back then,
but a stock trailer arrived in Yellowstone. It
stopped just down the road from where we are
now. And wolves from two different packs were
in the trailer. The Crystal Creek pack There
were four members, the parents, the alpha male,
the alpha female, and four male pups. And then
the other three cages had the original members
of the Rose Creek pack, a mother wolf and her
daughter, and then an unrelated male, wolf 10.
And so it was a giant media thing. The press
people were there. They had a hidden acclamation
pen. They had death threats against the walls.
I remember in your book you described that actually
there had to be armed Park Service Rangers there
24 hours a day. That's right. And that was in
the middle of the winter and they were the unsung
heroes of the operation. Totally. But basically
they put them in a pen that was maybe about an
acre with chain link fencing. and then fed them
a couple of times a week with animals that had
been hit by cars and run over. So it was initially
the Crystal Creek pack and then the Rose Creek
pack and then a third pack later arrived, what
became known as the Soda Butte pack. And their
pen was located, oh boy, maybe half a mile from
where the last wolves were killed, that Soda
Butte Cone area I talked about. We had this huge
overpopulation of elk, I think over 20 ,000.
Right. Mostly in that same northern area. So
you think of wolves that specialize in hunting
elk. They're looking through the chain link fencing
every day for two months, and they're thinking
one, two, three, four. Dinner, dinner, dinner.
Ten thousand and one, ten thousand and two, twenty
thousand and one. And they're thinking, you know,
maybe this isn't such a bad deal after all. If
we can just get out of here. We can get out of
here. Yeah. I did make a note of this from from
one of your books, you said that in 1995, there
were about 20 ,000 elk in the park. And I think
the accepted level for what they call carrying
capacity is only 5 ,000. What is carrying capacity?
What does that mean? Well, it would be, let's
say if you're a farmer or rancher and you have
a certain pasture or an area that is fenced off,
you have to figure out Well, there's enough grass
to feed on for I'll make up some numbers, 10
cattle or 30 sheep. If you have more, you have
a problem. Right. They run out of food. Right.
Yeah. So. It's hard to believe this, but in my
early years here, I had a retired park ranger
that kind of volunteered to help me, and he was
a very wise man. And he had worked in Yellowstone
several decades earlier in his early career.
And I totally get it. People would find this
hard to believe, but it was the truth. He said
every winter, of course, would issue him a rifle
and say, whenever you can, you shoot a lot of
elk. Yeah. We need to reduce the numbers. That
was their management program. Interesting. Yeah.
We'll just shoot them. Yeah. It's hard to believe
that. Yeah. Yeah. And after a while, the public
really rose up against that. I mean, if you came
with your family in a range, it pulls up and
takes the gun and starts blasting away. You know,
your kid would be crying. Yeah. Daddy, why is
he killing all those animals? Yeah. And, you
know, it's so anti. Yeah. And it's funny, too,
because it's almost like a recognition that there's
a problem. There's too many of them. Yeah. But
as you were talking earlier about how they refuse
to see what, what is the obvious answer staring
them in the face is returning the environment
to its natural state. 1995 was a very important
year for wolves, obviously because of the reintroduction,
but there's also a very important law enforcement
case that comes up in 1995. Um, you mentioned
these packs that were brought down from. from
Alberta and one of them being the Rose Creek
pack. And you mentioned a Wolf 10. Can you just
describe that situation in 95 with Wolf 10, not
before what happened, what we're going to talk
about at the very end. But what was the family
situation with Sheriff 10? Yeah. Yeah, it's quite
the story. So I think I mentioned that. pack,
the Rose Creek pack was in the same horse trailer
as the Crystal Creek wolves. Right. And six in
the Crystal Creek pack, but only three in Rose
Creek. And that was the mother wolf number nine
and her daughter, a pup number seven. And how
do you number why are wolves numbered? Sometimes
they're numbered. Sometimes they're not numbered.
How does that work? Sure. It's pretty simple.
Any wolf that has a radio caller gets a number.
Got it. And then but that's only maybe 25, 30
percent of all the walls. We definitely don't
want to give them a human type name like Ed.
Right. No offense. That's OK. We'll give the
best looking guy the name Ed. OK, that sounds
good. That sounds good. So, yeah, to be somewhat
scientific, we would refer to it by something
about its appearance. So there were two black
brother walls. One had a big chest blaze. The
other had a small blaze. So big blaze, small
blaze. Got it. Et cetera. But then if they got
a collar, they became a number. That's right.
Yeah. And it would just be in sequence. We're
in the. At least the fifteen hundreds now. But
getting back to Rose Creek, so. We assumed that
the maid of number nine the mother wolf in the
Rose Creek pack had been killed in Canada, okay?
They couldn't find him couldn't catch him if
he was alive So a single mother with one pup
not much of a pack right, but they caught a lone
male a big adult and he was called wolf ten and
So they thought well, you know, maybe they'll
like each other so They were in the same horse
trailer for however many days it took to drive
them down here. So they would have got the scent
of each other. There'd be vocalizations. So let's
say they would have had some awareness of each
other. And the mother wolf, I mean, this is speculation,
but, you know, I think it's fair to say she might
be thinking, gee, I need a guy. And there's a
guy here. He doesn't seem to have a girlfriend.
And maybe he'd be thinking the same thing. And
so they put the three of them together in the
pen at Rose Creek behind the Yellowstone Institute.
And by the time they were released two months
later, it was a family. So he was happy to raise
a stepdaughter, you know, whatever you want to
call. And we didn't really know for sure at the
time, but it turned out that she was pregnant
by the time they left. OK, they would have come
out of the pen in March. The pups seem to be
born in April and. I'll just kind of review what
happened after that somewhat quickly. Unfortunately,
when they were released, they decided to travel
east for some reason. Well, as you said, wolves
don't know where the boundary is to the park,
right? Yes, unknowingly, they went past the eastern
border of Yellowstone and they were in a national
forest there. And by that time, she was very
pregnant. Just Asian is two months, by the way.
Oh, is that all? Yeah. And so she dug a den.
She was getting ready to have her pups and he
was fulfilling his responsibility. He was the
only member of the pack that was free to go on
a hunt. And so he would leave the den area to
try to kill an elk or deer and bring back food.
She was indisposed. She couldn't leave. And then
once the pups were born, she had eight pups,
the first. Wolfpups born here since the 20s.
So it should have been a time of, well, it was
a time of great celebration and then he was killed.
Yeah, everybody. So everybody's bite in the Wolf
program is biting their fingernails because they
know she's outside the park and he's out here
because they're ready. Yes. Right. Yes. So episode
in episode two of season three. We are actually
going to talk to the special agent with the US
Fish and Wildlife Service, who did the very first
wolf poaching investigation. And it was the investigation
of 10's killing. So it was kind of a tragic blow
to the wolf reintroduction program, because now
you've got this new pack with brand new pups,
and you lose the alpha male. And how did they
know? This is one thing I think is really interesting
about radio collars. How did they know that wolf
10 had been killed? Sure. The transmitter is
programmed with a motion detector that if there's
no motion after a certain number of hours hours
the beats For a minute, I think it doubles. So
instead of beep beep beep, it's beep beep beep
beep and So We do regular flights Oftentimes
twice a week just to check on the walls and I
don't recall the details, but I imagine that
One of the Wolf biologists was doing a flight
and got the mortality signal and that set up
a whole gigantic chain of events which we can
get into. The guy cut off the collar and threw
it in a creek thinking that will screw up the
electronics, but it didn't. Tell us what happens
after Wolf 10 gets this mortality signal. What
was the next chain of events? from our perspective,
we needed to rescue the mother in the parks.
And so that's where Mike Phillips, who was the
leader of the Wolf Project at the time, and then
Doug Smith, and then other people came into play.
So they went over to that area just outside the
park with the telemetry equipment, hoping to
get number eight's, number nine's signal. But
if she was in the den, that would probably block
you getting it. You'd have to be very close to
get it. But just in the interest of time, let's
just jump to the point where they were able to
find the den. Carter Niemeyer was a player in
that, too, if you know him. I do, yeah. So Doug
Smith happened to be the guy because he's long
and lanky. He reached in, pulled him out one
at a time. There was one last pub. He just barely
got that guy. So they brought him back into the
park and they put him back. in the Rose Creek
pen, which is behind the Yellowstone Institute.
So it was the mother and eight pups. What happened
to the when the Rose Creek pack was first released
from its, it's what's it called? The acclamation.
She had a daughter. What happened to that dog?
Oh, yeah, that was number seven. She left and
paired off with. One of the male yearlings from
Crystal Creek. Okay. And I'm glad you mentioned
it because then that became the Leopold pack.
So Aldo Leopold, you know, his statement in the
40s, maybe we should bring walls back. That was
to honor him. That was to honor him. Yeah. Okay.
So Nine's daughter that she arrived with from
Canada broke off, formed her own pack. Yeah.
And then Ten and Nine mated and they had this
new litter of eight that was... Thank goodness
found and recovered. So we we were very worried
that a single mother with a extremely hungry
pups, it's going to be really hard for her to
protect them, to train them, and then by yourself,
dump them, go on a hunt and just one wolf trying
to kill a bison or an elk. It didn't look too
good, not very optimistic. And then something
happened. This is a great story. And I have to
admit I'm a little biased here because this is
about Wolf VIII, the main character in my first
Wolf book, first Yellowstone Wolf book. So he
was the runt of his litter. And I knew from the
biologists and the rangers that were involved
with the when he and his family were in the Crystal
Creek then that he was bullied and beaten up
all the time by his three. They were the same
age that they were bigger and stronger. And so
he really had a hard time. So he would be the
little guy in school that, you know, the bullies
beat up all the time. And so Wolf 8 started out
in the Crystal Creek. Yes. Yeah. He was one of
four sons. OK, so they were pups when they arrived.
Now he's a yearling. Let's say the equivalent
to a human teenage boy, maybe. 15 years old,
something like that. But I think it's fair to
say at that time, you know, if there was any
wolf that you would have assigned to saying,
well, he's never going to mount anything, you
know, maybe some pack will allow him to come
in and feed. But, you know, nothing more than
that. You know, it's just a sad story. So as
far as we know, he had kind of become a lone
wolf as a, I'll say, a teenager that kept him
away from his brothers who were the bullies.
And I had been watching him prior to that, and
I began to see, you know, there's something about
this guy that could really change his whole story.
I saw him stand up to a grizzly bear and get
away with it. The bear was like five times his
size and he confronted it and got away with it.
So to stay away from his brothers, he he just
wandered around a lot, explored a lot. Probably
he heard some howling from this new area. He
didn't know that there are other wolves other
than his family. So he went up there and that
his timing was perfect because the family had
just been released from the pen. So we think
he got there. And for the first time in his life,
he saw wolves that were smaller than he was.
And he didn't know that that was a possibility.
I'm going to use the word compassion. Empathy
kicked in and he ran over. dog wants to play
with a new dog that's meaning they bow down to
each other that's going to play about. Right.
We assume he did that, which was, hey, hey, guys,
let's play. Right. Not aggressive. Yeah. And
so he played with the pups. He probably didn't
realize it, but he was being watched by the mother.
She was desperate. She needed a guy. And to be
blunt. He wasn't the most likely candidate that
was applying, but no one else had applied. Yeah.
Yeah. You know, she wanted one twice his size
and, you know, twice as old, you know, and he
wasn't that wolf. Yeah. But he was there. And,
you know, there's that saying, what is it? Ninety
percent of success is just showing up. Exactly.
He showed up. And one thing I didn't know until
I read your books is Wolf families are matriarchal,
not patriarchal. Yes. It's the female that's
kind of in charge anyway. Yes. I tell that to
all the women I know. Yeah. They all know that
anyway. All the women we know already know they're
in charge. All the husbands are nodding their
head. Yeah, I get that. Yeah. But I the way I
say it is if you're a male wolf and you're ambitious
and you gradually work your way up to the alpha
position in your pack, You know, that's good.
That's a nice accomplishment. Good for you. But
all that means is now you're working for the
real boss. It sure ain't you. That's hilarious.
So Wolf eight and nine end up forming a pack.
Yeah, she was quite a bit older than he was.
Yeah. So in human years, he was a teenager and
she was at least middle age. But boy, it worked.
And. Let's maybe start the transition to the
story of one of those pups that he'd had a special
relationship with, and that was 21. And we don't
have time to talk about 21's adventures. All
I will say to my listeners is that, you know,
21 became one of the most famous wolves in the
Yellowstone reintroduction program. And his life
story is covered beautifully in one of your books.
To all my listeners, I cannot recommend Rick's
books enough. They are a beautiful story of the
Wolf reintroduction program in a Yellowstone.
He tells 21 story in a way that is just captivating,
whether you are pro wolf, anti wolf or neutral
on wolves. If you want to understand wolves and
their place in the environment in the Western
US, you have to start reading Rick's books because
they will really open your eyes about. How wolves
work and how they interact in their environment
and it's just a it's a great way to understand
wolf behavior and biology One thing, you know
before we wrap up Rick. I want to just Throw
out a couple of things that I picked up during
my time researching wolves and reading your books
When we opened this podcast episode, we talked
about how Jane Goodall described you as the guru
of wolves you This is astonishing to me You you
recorded, I'm sure it's more now, but you recorded
15 straight years of observing wolves every single
day for 15 years. Not every day, but probably.
I saw wolves maybe 95 percent of the days. It's
pretty darn good. That's pretty darn good. It
wasn't perfect, though. But I have to say, I
mean, 15 years going out every single day, not
missing a day and seeing wolves 90 to 95 percent
of the time. Do you know what finally stopped
me? I will know. Tell me. I had to have a quintuple
heart. What is it called? Heart bypass surgery?
Yeah, bypass. Oh, my God. Quintuple. Yeah, yeah.
Well, you're lucky that you caught it and you
weren't out in the middle of Yellowstone when
something happened, right? Yeah. Yeah, I got
through that. OK. So you still go out to observe
wolves, right? Yeah, I had my 10 ,000th day last
spring. Incredible. And I keep track of every
day how many wolves I've seen. I have a calendar
here, so this was last month. The time I left,
the time I came back, how many wolves I saw,
where they were, what pack it was. And so I did
add it up around the time of my 10 ,000th day
and it was something like... A hundred and twenty
six thousand walls. That's incredible. So let's
say a pack of 10 one day, a pack of 50 another
day, et cetera. Yeah. Just for my listeners can't
see. Rick just showed me his his calendar, the
same type of calendar I carry every day. I still
love a paper calendar and it's covered in days.
He's been out looking at wolves. So, you know,
it's really impressive, Rick. Another statistic
I wanted to bring up is one of the things you
mentioned is Just in 1995 alone, which was and
you mentioned this in one of your books, 1995
alone, which was the first year of wolf introduction,
reintroduction, you recorded 40 ,000 interactions
with park visitors, which is that's incredible.
That's a lot of people you're contacting in one
summer and educating about wolf biology and the
importance of reintroducing them to Yellowstone.
That's that's a really impressive, you know,
It's an impressive feat, but more importantly,
it's an impressive service. It's an impressive
public service to the people of this country.
So, you know, I love that there are interpretive
rangers out there that do that sort of thing.
So on behalf of me and anybody else who cares
in this country, thank you for doing that. It's
a huge service. Well, you're welcome. I and that
was because of my. My background was very different
than most wildlife researchers because I had
been what the Park Service calls a naturalist
for half of my career. So that was my job, talking
to people, doing shows, etc. So and because wolves
were still a somewhat controversial species,
you know, we needed to explain what we were doing.
But at a certain point after the reintroduction,
you didn't need to go over all that stuff every
time with every person. So then it was, hey,
folks, come on over here. We have the Jewett
Peak Pack. Look through my scope. That's Wolf
21. That's his mate 42, et cetera. That's 42's
evil sister, 40. His evil sister, 40. Yeah, just
tell everybody you have to read the book about
Wolf 40 because that's a great story. And so,
I mean, what's better than showing people that
are new to Yellowstone on their first wolves?
Yeah. And you describe many occasions where you
actually had the feeling that you changed people's
lives when they got to see wolves interacting
with each other and their environment. Yes, and
this memoir that I have coming out in a few months,
I quote Doug Smith, and he said something very
astute that's very, very true. He said, facts
don't change people, but stories do. So whether
it's you or me or Doug himself, you could talk
to your blue in the face about the... ecological
value of having wolves on the landscape and it's
all true, you know, there's no doubting that.
And that, you know, that accomplishes some good.
There's value in that. But what people like are
stories. And for example, the relationship that
when 21 was a pup, he met wolf eight. who we
knew was the runt of his letter. But to 21, this
is the biggest male wolf he had ever seen in
his life because it was the first male wolf he
had ever seen. So, they became kind of best friends
so to speak. Once 21 was a year or two older,
they would go on a hunt together. They were like
close friends, but Cassidy and the Sundance kid.
But he always looked up to eight. He always admired
him. You always saw him as above well above him
in the hierarchy. And it wasn't long before 21
was way bigger than eight, but was, you know,
very happy and being subordinate to him. And,
you know, I'm sorry, go ahead, go ahead. And
this is in my book on 21. The thing that. When
I saw this happen, it really made me think, you
know, there's something really extra special
about 21. And he had just come back. He was still
in his original family, meaning with nine and
eight. His mother had a new litter of pups this
particular year. But one of the pups wasn't doing
too well. It was sick with something. We don't
know quite what it was. So it generally was away
from the other pups while they were playing.
You would see this little guy just kind of watching
from a distance. And so 21 came back from a hunt
and I'm sure he was exhausted and tired. They
had been successful, he and eight. So he gave
some food to his mother, number nine. He regurgitated
to the pups there. And then he looked around
and I realized that he was looking for that extra
puppy. And he went right to him and fed him.
But more importantly, just kind of hung out with
that guy for a while. And, you know, it's an
emotional story even now for me to talk about
that. it would be like a kid that is sick, is
left behind, his friends aren't paying any attention
to him, but his big brother comes back and his
big brother wants to hang out with him. Right.
Emotionally made him feel better. Yeah. There's
a number of occasions in your books where you
talk about that. I'm saying that's actually the
very story I was going to ask you to tell was
that story about comforting the sickly pup. And
there's another interesting story that goes with
eight and 21, I think. And that is, I'll have
you tell it, but I'll just give the setup to
it. A lot of times what you describe in your
book, there's often conflict between packs and
that actually serves a important goal of keeping
pack sizes in check for their carrying capacity
with the number of elk around. You described
some instances where Wolf 8 and 21 both, I guess,
for lack of a better word, cut some slack to
a wolf they were fighting. Can you kind of tell
one of those stories a little bit where 8 or
21 didn't kill when they could have? Yes. And
the best example of that. it would be 21's no
good nephew, well, 302. There's always a good
nephew in any good story or bad nephew in every
good story. So in 302 he had a problem and a
lot of guys have a similar problem. He was just
too good looking and the girls would let him
get away with anything, yeah. So when 302 grew
up, so he was born to let's see, 21's older sister
and to 8's brother. So he came from this, you
know, great genetic background. So his parents
were superior wolves that were, you know, the
best possible role models for an alpha pair and
then there was their son who was the opposite.
So when he grew up, yeah, his idea of a long
-term relationship with a girl, 15 minutes, maybe.
And that was kind of pushing it. He was getting
bored. I got it. I got to move on. So and he
was apparently irresistible to 21's daughter.
So he just got them pregnant. And then 21 had
to raise his own kids and his grandkids. And
21 would chase 302 and catch him repeatedly.
But 21 just had this code that, as far as we
know, he never killed another wolf. He would
just make his point and then, you know, hopefully
he learned a lesson. But 302, you know, figured
out how to take advantage of that. So he came
back mating season after mating season and did
it all over again. And, you know, I kept on thinking,
why don't you just kill the guy and get it over
with? If I was a dad, that's what I would do.
All right. And. But he never did that. He showed
a lot of empathy to other folks. That's right.
Yeah, he did, too. Yeah, I think 21 learned that
from me. Yeah, which that's just the you talk
about stories and those stories are just so.
moving and fascinating. And the irony of all
that stuff is that in many ways, Aidan 21 were
kind of the opposite because he was the runt
of his litter, was bullied and beaten up. 21
was probably the strongest and the biggest wolf
in his litter. But you wonder, well, would he,
without 8, would he have turned out the same
way? Did he need 8 in his life to turn out the
way they did? It's just it's a fascinating thing.
Would he have been a bully if it wasn't for 8?
So I oftentimes say that 21 was the undefeated
heavyweight champion. He never lost a fight,
right? But he never killed an opponent that he
defeated. I don't think he ever even seriously
injured an opponent. He just did the minimum.
You know, it'd be like if you or I sparred with.
like Tyson, Muhammad Ali and their heyday, you
know, hopefully they go easy on us. Hopefully
they'd go easy on us, exactly. But getting back
to 302, he just he always took the easy way out,
kind of the coward's way out. So he had nothing
to do with raising any of his pups. Right. You
know, he was back with his parents and I this
is going to be a joke. It's not serious. Yeah.
We we heard that he spent most of his time in
their basement playing video games. You know
how those guys are down in the basement of the
den. Yeah. That's a funny. That's a great story.
So just to finish, can I say? Sure. Yeah. OK.
I'm just going to ask you, what else do we need
to talk about? I don't want to keep you here
all day, which we could stay all day. A little
bit more on 302. So I just figured, you know,
this is his life story. And. When he got older,
he totally turned his life around and he became
an alpha male very much like his father and his
uncle. And I don't want to spoil it, but at the
climax of his life, which is the climax of the
book about 302, he became one of our greatest
heroes. That's the book entitled Redemption of
World 302, right? Yeah, that's right. Yeah. So
Rick, what can you what do you know about the
economic impacts of the reintroduction of wolves
to the Yellowstone. What kind of impact has it
had on the local communities? Well, boy, it's
quite a story that we never really expected,
even for me being around walls in other areas.
When I came back in the spring of 95, after the
walls had been released, my goal for that year.
being a ranger in Yellowstone, having some inside
information about where the wolves were. My goal
was if I could see part of one wolf, one, that
year I'd be the happiest guy in the world. You
know, even a tail. Right. Give me a tail. That's
the way I am now. I just want to see a movement.
Yeah, yeah. I would not have been surprised if
I hadn't seen any wolves that summer. But my
first full day I saw the the whole Crystal Creek
pack, including Wolf 8. And as you know, Yellowstone
is mostly open country. And so if wolves are
traveling through, you can see them from the
road, maybe half a mile away, a mile away. And
then eventually some of them den with inside
of the road and you can see them raise their
pups. So that was unexpected. And very quickly,
some of the local folks, mostly men and women
in their 20s, figured out, well, But maybe we
should start up some wildlife tour business guiding
services. And now we have a huge number of them.
But the Montana State University in Bozeman,
they periodically come down and do economic surveys.
And they ask people, why did you come to Yellowstone?
And so it used to be the hot springs, the geysers,
you know, all that stuff. Now it's the wolves
and the bears, with usually the wolves being
number one. And so they have a formula where
we get now five million visitors a year. So they
took what percentage of people say they came
to see wolves, what percentage of the five million
that would be, and then they multiply it by the
average amount. that a typical family spends
here. And so and they do that periodically every
few years. And the most recent one, the figure
is 83 million dollars. Wow. Every year. Generated
by Wolf. Wolf tourism. Yeah, that's right. Yeah.
And so you may have noticed as you go through
the park, you'll see a lot of cars with the logos
of their the logos of their. to her name, like
Wolf Tracker is one of them. I saw one of those.
Yeah. And so it boy, it's a great way to earn
your living. And no offense to other types of
jobs. But before the walls, let's say normal
family that had kids growing up, they finished
their schooling. Really, the only jobs. locally
would be working on a gas station, a gift shop,
a motel, you clean rooms for visitors. Those
are valid jobs, no offense on any of them, but
they're pretty much minimum wage. Now you can
start your own business, hire people, and that's
a pretty good job to have. You get up early,
you have some nice people, you take them out
to see wolves. Spend every day in the wilderness?
Yeah. That's a pretty nice job. In contrast,
sticking with the economics, I'm a Montana resident.
And so I went to the hunting section of Montana
Fish, Wildlife and Parks. And the most recent
time I did that was a little over a year ago.
I saw that as a Montana resident, if I paid the
fees and licenses and everything, I could shoot
10 wolves and trap 10 wolves. One person could
kill 20 wolves every year. And the cost for that,
for a Montana resident, works up to $14 per wolf.
Now, on the other hand, when we talked about
$83 million, we tend to average about 100 wolves
at any given time. So a different way to answer
the question, what is the value of the wolf?
There's a pretty good argument to say eight hundred
and thirty thousand dollars per wolf. Yeah, for
tourism. Plus, however many wolves, however many
wolves saw people today. I was trying to say
the other way around. So, you know, some days
a thousand people see the wolves, maybe two thousand
people. Sure. And the next day more people will
see. probably those same wolves. So that's really
begun to change the equations here, that even
the politicians in the past would be very anti
-wolf. They're starting to see, well, maybe there's
something more to this than what we first thought.
I think I told you the quote from Doug Smith
and I that facts don't change people. Stories
do. Yeah, I always hesitate to say this because
my involvement is not the point of this story.
It's always women that tell me this. They come
up and say, hey, I gave my husband, I gave my
boyfriend, I gave my neighbor one of your wolf
books and. After reading it, they decided not
to kill any more wolves. We need more of that.
Yeah, the last time it happened, the husband
was standing there and the wife said, you know,
that, you know, something along those lines.
And he he kind of was looking at his feet. And
then, you know, when she finished, I looked at
him and he looked at me and he said, yeah, it's
true. Well, I that is a very interesting story.
And I think that is should make you sleep well
at night. Knowing that, well, I understand you
saying that and thank you, but I really it's
it's all the walls. It's not me. I just tell
their stories, tell their stories. But it wouldn't
happen without somebody who'd been out there
every day for 15 years observing wolves. Yeah,
but it's still their story. That's a very humble
way to put it. But for for my listeners, I actually
would I'm going to put on my website a list of
Rick's books that he's published about wolves.
They're all good. They're all great. My recommendation,
though, is that people start with the rise of
Wolf eight, which I think tells the story of
Wolf ten and nine. Yeah, it tells briefly introduces
you to the demise of Wolf ten, but then really
goes into great detail about the the Rose Creek
pack and the its success under Wolf nine and
Wolf eight together as the Alphas. It's a great
place to start. The rick mcintyre series of books
on wolves rick i cannot thank you enough for
sitting down with me i know it was a little bit
difficult to do the scheduling to make this happen.
But this is the perfect introduction to my season
three next week will be talking to retired special
agent tim eicher who will tell the story about
wolf ten from the law enforcement investigative
side and from there we will. we will soldier
on and learn more about wolf reintroduction and
wolf ecology in the United States. Okay, great.
Thank you so much for being on the show. I really
appreciate it. Thank you. Nature's Secret Service
is written and produced by me, Ed Newcomer, and
is co -produced by the DHTV team here at California
State University Dominguez Hills. Follow us on
social media and connect with us online at naturessecretservice
.com.