A wolf from Yellowstone National Park’s famed Mollie’s pack tried snatching a tiny grizzly cub on Monday, but the cub’s mother didn’t hesitate to protect her offspring and sent the wolf running for its life.
All three animals involved in the drama emerged without a scratch, said wildlife enthusiast Gary Gaston, who caught the bears on video.
“If there had been more than one wolf, they probably would have gotten it (the cub),” said Gaston, a retired biology professor from Oxford, Mississippi.
Gaston spends his springs and summers watching wildlife in Yellowstone.
He said he knows of wolves killing black bear cubs, but this was the first time he’s seen a wolf try pushing its luck with a mother grizzly.
The female grizzly has been out and about with her cub-of-the-year (COY) for nearly two weeks, making her an early riser from hibernation as far as female bears with new cubs go.
So far, she’s the only grizzly with a COY that’s been spotted in Yellowstone’s wildlife-rich Lamar Valley, Gaston said.
Mom Knows A Way Across The Creek
On Monday, the grizzlies were apparently trying to cross the valley to Druid Peak.
To do so, they had to cross Soda Butte Creek.
“The really weird part is, they (mother grizzlies) don’t usually do that with newborn cubs, because the newborns can’t swim across the creek,” Gaston said.
But momma bear had a solution for that – she led her cub across a foot bridge that spans the creek.
She seemed to know exactly where the bridge was, Gaston said.
“She must have crossed that bridge before. She must have crossed it as a yearling,” he said.
Big, Bad Wolf
After crossing the bridge, the grizzlies continued on their way, he said.
“In doing so, she went around a bunch of bison and encountered the wolf,” Gaston said. “And the wolf came after the cub.”
In his video, the mother bear can be seen rearing up on her hind legs, perhaps to intimidate the wolf.
Then as the wolf starts to turn tail, she drops to all fours and charges after it, prompting the wolf to kick it into high gear.
Bison-Fed Wolves
Members of the Mollie’s wolf pack had been feasting on a carcass, thought to be an elk carcass, in the nearby brush, Gaston said.
The wolf in the video looks huge, and that tracks for a member of the Mollie’s pack, which are no slouches, Gaston said.
It’s a high-profile pack with many followers and was one of the first Yellowstone wolf packs to start preying on bison.
Feasting on bison can make for bigger wolves, but they have to work hard for bison meat, and risk getting clobbered in the process.
Recently, members of another prominent wolf pack, the Junction Butte wolf pack, narrowly escaped getting stomped by angry adult bison, when they tried unsuccessfully to nab a bison calf.
Mark Heinz can be reached at mark@cowboystatedaily.com.
