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Yoho National Park of Canada

Animals

wolf (Canis lupus)
© Parks Canada/A.Dibb

Wolf Research and Monitoring

Historical Background

There was a time when wolves were among the most common and wide-ranging large carnivores in North America. Before European settlement began, wolves were common in the valleys of the Rocky Mountains. Wolf control began in the last century, resulting in almost complete elimination of the species in the southern and central Rocky Mountains by the beginning of the twentieth century. Wolf numbers in the Rocky Mountain National Parks recovered in the 1940's coincident with an increase in ungulate populations. However, wolf populations again declined in the 1950's due to renewed control programs of shooting and poisoning, both on provincial lands and in National Parks. Wolf populations remained at very low levels until wolves began recolonizing the central Rockies in the early-1980s. Since then this controversial animal has again been an integral part of the mountain ecosystem. Today, wolves are present in both Yoho and Kootenay National Parks and on some adjacent provincial lands.

coyote (Canis latrans)
© Parks Canada/A.Dibb

Wolf Biology and Ecology

Wolves share the mountain parks with two other canid species, the coyote and the red fox. The coyote is smaller than the wolf and has proportionately larger ears and a more pointed snout. Wolf colour in the Rocky Mountains is often similar to that of coyotes and so pelage colour is not a reliable species indicator. The typical coyote has a light grey body with a black streak running down the back. The red fox is an uncommon species in the Mountain parks and is rarely confused with coyote or wolf due to its small size and distinctive colouration.

Wolves in the Central Rockies are of the subspecies Canis lupus irremotus, and are larger than their eastern cousins. The male Rocky Mountain wolf weighs 35 to 55 kg and stands approximately 80 cm at the shoulder. Wolves live in small, tightly organized family groups, called packs. An alpha male and an alpha female dominate each pack and are the only mating pair in the group. Wolves are a highly social and playful species.

wolf pack
© Parks Canada/YNP Collection

Wolf packs in the Rocky Mountains have large territories. The Yoho wolf pack covers an area of roughly 1,000 km2. This large home range is required to provide an adequate prey base. Ungulate densities are relatively low in Kootenay and Yoho National Parks, and wolves have to travel widely to meet their food requirements. Territorial boundaries may periodically change due to weather and prey availability.

Wolves are known to eat whatever they can hunt and kill. Prey ranges in size from mice to moose. In the Yoho study area, which is bounded by the Continental Divide, Columbia River Valley and the Blaeberry River watershed, researchers investigated wolf kill sites and found that wolves preyed primarily on moose and elk.

Research and Monitoring

Wolf Kills: Yoho Wolf Study 1995-1997
© Parks Canada

Researchers have been closely monitoring the wolf re-colonization process of the central Rocky Mountains. Research was initiated in 1987 in Banff National Park. Wolf research has since been extended into Yoho and Kootenay National Parks. Five years of research funded by Parks Canada recently ended (1999), but research is continuing today through the Central Rockies Wolf Project with the support of the park's wildlife program.

Researchers use radio telemetry to track the wolves' location in the wild. Each radio-collar is equipped with a transmitter that emits a unique radio frequency. The location of the signal is determined using a radio receiver and a directional antenna. Researchers often conduct telemetry from the air, using an airplane or a helicopter to search for study animals. This is sometimes more economical than ground searching for wide-ranging animals.

wolf tracks in snow
© Parks Canada/YNP Collection

During the winter months, researchers also snow track wolves to determine the movements and activities of all members of the pack. By following the tracks of wolves and their prey and looking for other clues in the snow, researchers can piece together events of the hunt. In order to avoid disturbing wolves, researchers generally rely on "backtracking" (following the wolf tracks backwards - away from the direction the wolves were travelling).

Other research techniques employed in the Yoho wolf study include analysis of scat (fecal material) to determine food habits, measurement of snow conditions at kill sites, assessment of physical condition of prey animals, and necropsy (post-mortem examination) of dead study wolves.

Wolf research is used to determine habitat preferences, prey selection, movement corridors, mortality causes, and location of critical areas such as den sites. This information can have an important bearing on management of human use in protected areas, and may influence selection of locations and levels of human use on trails, facility location, and seasonal closures in critical areas such as den and rendezvous sites.

The Yoho Wolf Pack

The territory of the Yoho pack includes the headwaters of the Beaverfoot and Kootenay Rivers south of Yoho National Park, the Kicking Horse River valley between Glenogle Creek and the town of Field, and tributary valleys to the Kicking Horse including the Amiskwi and Ottertail valleys.

Recorded observations of wolves in Yoho National Park in the first two-thirds of the 20th century suggest wolves were present mainly as "occasional stragglers". By the 1970s sightings became more common, with evidence of about four animals in the upper Ice River Valley in 1975. The first evidence of denning activity in the park was recorded in the 1980s. Denning activity was confirmed again in 1994, leading to an extension of the mountain parks' wolf research into Yoho in 1995. From then until 1999 wolf packs seem to have continuously occupied lower elevation areas of the park and adjacent provincial lands. Intensive research on the Yoho pack ended in 1998, but park staff, volunteers, and the Central Rockies Wolf Project continue to monitor pack status and movements.

1995

The first radio-collared wolf in Yoho National Park was an adult male captured in May 1995 and named Sirius by researchers. He was tracked during the summer and early fall of 1995 and then disappeared in mid-October. Although researchers and wardens never recovered Sirius' body, there was strong circumstantial evidence that he had been shot just outside the park near the confluence of the Beaverfoot River and Moose Creek.

Merlin was another adult male captured in May 1995. However he dispersed out of the study area in late June and is believed to have died (cause unknown) near the east end of the Bush Arm of the Kinbasket Reservoir north of Golden, BC.

1996

Three more wolves were captured and radio-collared in May of 1996. Aurora was a yearling female, Amiswki was an adult female, and Aquila was an adult female believed to be the alpha female of the Yoho pack. All three wolves ranged with other pack members between the mouth of the Ottertail River and the Kootenay Park boundary (mainly outside the park) during the summer but returned to the park the very day hunting season opened. The pack size at this time appeared to be about nine animals, but was reduced to seven by mid-winter, possibly due to dispersal.

1997

In the spring of 1997 Aquila denned near the Kicking Horse River just outside the park and successfully produced pups. At least one other large wolf was documented moving regularly between kill sites and the den, presumably bringing food to Aquila and her pups. After leaving the den site in mid-May she moved to the Tallon Creek area of Yoho National Park.

On May 11, 1997 Amiskwi was shot and killed near a hunting lodge just outside the park in the Beaverfoot valley near Tallon Creek. She had been feeding on the remains of a dead steer brought to that location from the Columbia Valley. Researchers documented that both Aquila and Aurora remained nearby for 10 days and both wolves independently investigated the site of the shooting, although it was unclear whether this was to search for Amiswki or to look for food. The two surviving radio-collared wolves were never relocated together again.

In November of 1997 Aurora's collar began transmitting on "mortality mode". Researchers and park wardens investigated and determined that the collar was in the Beaverfoot River but they were unable to retrieve it. Possible explanations were that Aurora had slipped her collar and still survived; that she had drowned when crossing the river; or that she had been shot and either her or her collar dumped in the river. Further investigation revealed that a wolf had been reported shot near the same location at the same time, but it was never confirmed that the shot wolf was Aurora.

1998 - 2000

Aquila went missing for a period of three and a half months in the winter of 1997-98, but reappeared in mid-February 1998, only to disappear again shortly after her male partner was shot in the Beaverfoot Valley. Her whereabouts were unknown until she was captured in the Oldman River drainage of southwestern Alberta in February of 1999. She was fitted with a new collar and was located several times north of Blairmore, Alberta later that year. Some time during the winter of 1999-00 it is believed that Aquila sustained a foot or leg injury when caught in a leg-hold trap. On May 1st, 2000 she was found dead near Racehorse Creek, Alberta but she may have already been dead for more than a month. The exact cause of death could not be determined. Aquila was the last of the Yoho radio-collared wolves.

Although the Yoho pack produced pups in 1999, it sustained very high mortality levels from rail and road collisions (see table 1). Winter snow tracking research determined that at least three wolves had survived to late winter in Yoho (1999-00). However, we had few confirmed sightings during the summer and do not believe that wolves reproduced in Yoho National Park during 2000. As of September, two wolves have been killed on the Trans-Canada Highway in Yoho. Although Yoho likely does not have a resident, reproducing wolf pack at present, wolves may continue to enter the park from provincial lands or other national parks.

Table 1

Yoho Wolf Highway and Railway Mortalities: 1999

Yoho National Park
Railway Collision - 1
Highway Collision - 4

Out of Park
Railway Collision - 2
Highway Collision - 1

People and Wolves

The history of wolves in the Central Rocky Mountains illustrates that even a resourceful animal with high reproductive capability, like the wolf, can be extirpated through human activity. Although wolves are now safe from direct persecution in National Parks, they are still subject to high mortality rates from collisions with vehicles and trains, to disturbance from human activities and facilities, and loss of habitat and prey base. Wolves are wide-ranging animals which frequently cross jurisdictional boundaries. Outside parks wolves face additional perils, including hunting, trapping, and poisoning, in part brought on through perceived competition for wild game or conflict over livestock.

In 1996 researchers documented the causes of wolf mortality between 1984 and 1995 in the Yoho study area (including the adjacent Beaverfoot Valley outside the park). Although many wolf deaths, including naturally caused deaths likely go unreported and undetected, 24 wolf mortalities with known cause were identified. 25% of these mortalities occurred within Yoho National Park. The chart below summarizes these findings.

What is Parks Canada Doing to Protect Wolves in Yoho National Park?

The Yoho National Park Management Plan (2000) states that the park will maintain conditions to support a wolf pack in the park. However it is recognized that the park does not contain sufficient habitat and prey animals to wholly support a wolf pack; "Yoho" wolves will always be partially dependent on adjacent provincial lands. Consequently the park must work with provincial wildlife management agencies, private landowners, local citizens and recreationists to conserve wolves. Currently this is done through inter-agency dialogue, environmental education, and communication of research results.

Parks Canada is using wolf research results in park planning activities and in environmental impact assessments. The park is attempting to reduce wolf highway mortality levels through enforcement of posted speed limits. The park works with Canadian Pacific Railway to ensure prompt removal of ungulate rail kills that might attract wolves and other animals to the rail line in search of carrion. In Kootenay and Banff National Parks the warden service has employed temporary speed zone restrictions along stretches of highway where wolves make frequent crossings, particularly when wolf pups begin making forays away from their den site. Such speed zones could be implemented in Yoho, although it is difficult to determine the timing and location for such measures without radio-collared wolves in the pack.

The park recognizes that wolves require an adequate prey base and that populations of large ungulates, such as elk and mule deer have declined in recent years. Cause of the decline is believed to be a combination of highway mortality levels, declining habitat quality (especially winter range), severe winters, and predation. The park is implementing a program to restore the role of fire and improve habitat for large ungulates.

What You Can Do

Collisions with motor vehicles are a major cause of wolf mortality in the mountain national parks. Please obey posted speed limits when driving through our parks. In addition, please obey temporary restricted speed zones that may be established along portions of the park's highway, especially in late summer to protect wolves at locations where they may be frequently crossing the highway.

Wild wolves have a better chance of surviving than ones that become habituated or tolerant of people at close range. If you see a wolf, do not approach or feed it, and do not leave your vehicle to get a closer look or picture. This helps keeps wolves wild.

Visitors and local residents can also help by reporting wolf sightings, including sightings outside of the park in areas such as the Kootenay Valley south of the park and the Columbia Valley between Golden and Canal Flats. Sightings can be reported to park information centres or e-mailed to KNP.wildlife@pc.gc.ca (we regret that we are unable to respond to queries at this e-mail address). Be sure to provide the date, time, location, other pertinent details, and (optionally) contact information so that park wardens can ask you follow-up questions if they need more details.