Wolves continually disperse southward in Wyoming following the drainages like the Greys River and the flanks of the Wyoming Range and the Salt River Range.

Most, but not all, run into lots of livestock, especially sheep as they get further south, and the wolves disappear.

Here, from last summer, is a band of sheep getting bedded down, at the very southern end of the Salt River Range. The area is full of aspen, beaver ponds, elk, deer and moose, so the wolves are not short of wild prey, but there are so many sheep!

sheep-saltrivers.jpg
Sheep in the Smith’s Fork. Salt River Range. Copyright Ralph Maughan

 
About The Author

Ralph Maughan

Dr. Ralph Maughan is professor emeritus of political science at Idaho State University. He was a Western Watersheds Project Board Member off and on for many years, and was also its President for several years. For a long time he produced Ralph Maughan's Wolf Report. He was a founder of the Greater Yellowstone Coalition. He and Jackie Johnson Maughan wrote three editions of "Hiking Idaho." He also wrote "Beyond the Tetons" and "Backpacking Wyoming's Teton and Washakie Wilderness." He created and is the administrator of The Wildlife News.

2 Responses to SW Wyoming, the black hole for wolves

  1. dcookie says:

    “and the wolves disappear.”

    Sheep make wolves disappear?

    Riiiiiight.

  2. Tracy says:

    Just look at how this “Wildlife” habitat is over-run by these sheep! What a waste! Even if you think sheep belong in a “Wildlife Habitat”, who wants to walk through tons of sheep crap and damaged foliage! Man continues to screw up the balance of our ecosystem. Bring back the wolves!! Ranchers, buy your own land for your “domesticated” animals.

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‎"At some point we must draw a line across the ground of our home and our being, drive a spear into the land and say to the bulldozers, earthmovers, government and corporations, “thus far and no further.” If we do not, we shall later feel, instead of pride, the regret of Thoreau, that good but overly-bookish man, who wrote, near the end of his life, “If I repent of anything it is likely to be my good behaviour."

~ Edward Abbey

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