i)RAl<Ti;t,S Af'fKNDlX I 



territory are so unique (elevations, land use, land ownership pallems, prey species present and relative abundance, 

 etc.), it is difficult to generalize about wolf territories and movements. 



After recolonizing the GNP area in the 1980s, individual wolves dispersed and established new packs and territories 

 elsewhere in western Montana. Wolves demonstrated a greater tolerance of human presence and disturbance than 

 previously thought characteristic of the species. It was previously believed that higher elevation public lands would 

 comprise the primary occupied habitats (Fritts et al.l994). While some packs have established territories in 

 backcountry areas, most preferred lower elevations and gentle terrain where prey is more abundant, particularly in 

 winter (Boyd-Heger 1997). In some .settings, geography dictates that wolf packs use or travel through private lands 

 and co-exist in close proximity with people and livestock. Since the first pack established a territory outside the 

 GNP area in the early 1990s, packs in northwestern Montana negotiated a wide spectrum of property owners and 

 land uses. These colonizers also settled across an array of rural development. 



With the exception of GNP packs, wolves in northwest Montana move through a complex matrix of public, private, 

 and corporate-owned lands. Landowner acceptance of wolf presence and the use of private lands is highly variable 

 in space and time. Given the mobility of the species and the extent to which these lands are intermingled, it would 

 not be unusual for a wolf to traverse each of these ownerships in a single day. Land uses range from dispersed 

 outdoor recreation, timber production, or livestock grazing to home sites within the rural-wildland interface, hobby 

 farming/livestock, or full-scale resort developments with golf courses. For example, private lands make up 55% of 

 the Little Wolf pack's territory west of Kalispell (USFWS unpubl. data). TTie majority is owned by Plum Creek 

 Timber Company and managed for commercial timber production. While technically private property, Plum Creek 

 lands are generally open to public recreation. Livestock are present under a grazing lease between the company and 

 a local grazing cooperative. The remaining 45% of the pack's territory is public land and managed for multiple 

 uses. In contrast, individual citizens manage 53% of the private land in the Boulder pack's territory west of Helena 

 for livestock production. 



Private land may offer habitat features that are especially attractive to wolves so the pack may utilize those lands 

 disproportionately more often than other parts of their territory. Land uses may predispose a pack to conflict with 

 people or livestock, although the presence of livestock does not make it a forgone conclusion that a pack will 

 routinely depredate. Domestic livestock are present year round within the territories of many Montana packs. For 

 example, since the late 1980s, the Ninemile and Murphy Lake packs encountered livestock regularly, but caused 

 conflict only sporadically. 



The earliest colonizing wolves had large territories. Ream et al. ( 1991 ) reported an average of 460 square miles 

 (mi"). In recent years, average territory size decreased, probably as new territories filled in suitable, unoccupied 

 habitat. In the Northwest Montana Recovery Area during 1999, the average territory size was 185 mi" (8 packs). 

 Individual territories were highly variable in size, with a range of 24-614 mi" (USFWS et al. 2000). 



Territories in the GYA were larger, averaging 344 mi" ( 1 1 packs). Individual pack territories ranged from 33 to 934 

 mi^. Central Idaho wolf packs had the largest average territory size of 360 mi" (13 packs), with individual pack 

 territories ranging from 141 - 703 mi' (USFWS et al. 2000). 



Dispersal 



When wolves reach sexual maturity, some remain with their natal pack while others leave, looking for a mate to start 

 a new pack of their own. These individual wolves are called dispersers. Dispersal may be to nearby unoccupied 

 habitat near their natal pack's territory or it may entail traveling several hundred miles before locating vacant 

 habitat, a mate, or joining another pack. Animals may disperse preferentially to areas occupied by conspecitlcs (Ray 

 et al. 1991 ). This appears true for the gray wolf, a species that utilizes scent marking and howling to locate other 

 wolves (Ray et al. 1991). Boyd and Pletscher ( 1999) indicated that the dispersers in their study moved towards 

 areas with higher wolf densities than found in their natal areas - in this case northward towards Canada. This has 

 important implications for wolves in Montana, which now have conspecitlcs to the south and west in central Idaho 

 and YNP. Dispersal has already resulted in the formation of several new packs in Montana (Fig. 2) (Boyd et al. 

 1995, USFWS et al. 2001 ). Wolves will probably continue dispersing from the core areas and slowly occupy 

 landscapes between the Canadian border, central Idaho and northwestern Wyoming (USFWS et al. 2000). 



