The breeding male of the Bow Valley wolf pack may be denning at an historic den site in the remote Spray Valley of Banff National Park.
The den is one of the first known sites used by wolves when they recolonized the southern end of the park in the 1980s. Members of that pack eventually migrated to the Bow Valley where they formed a pack here.
Parks Canada officials say for the past three weeks GPS data from a collar on the alpha male, known as 1501, shows he has been travelling to and from an historic den in the Spray Valley – which evidence shows has been used on and off since the 1940s.
They say it’s possible 1501 has joined other wolves in that area, noting tracks of four wolves were spotted in the Bryant Valley and remote cameras picked up the occasional wolf travelling through the Spray area.
But, they say, it’s unknown if he is the breeding wolf in that pack, or has a lower-ranking role in the social structure, or whether he did pair up with another female to produce pups and is denning there.
“We don’t know if he’s paired up with another female and we won’t know for sure for a while, but it’s pretty cool they appear to be denning in the Spray Valley,” said Jesse Whittington, a wildlife biologist with Banff National Park.
“This den has been used intermittently since the 1940s and was one of the first den sites the Bow Valley pack used when they recolonized southern Banff in the late 1980s. It’s fascinating to see what wolves do. The dynamics are constantly changing.”
Heading into winter, the alpha male was one of three remaining members of the troubled Bow Valley pack, which suffered many deaths at the hands of humans last year due to food conditioning.
Just last month, a young male member of the pack dispersed about 500 linear kilometres to an area near Arrow Lakes in B.C., where he was shot and killed by a hunter. That left behind the alpha male and the young female wolf.
After Parks wildlife crews were forced to kill the alpha female of the pack last year when she became too bold, there has been ongoing speculation on what 1501 would do – breed with his daughter, pair up with transient wolves or not den at all this year.
Whittington said there was no evidence through March that he had paired up with another female, although there were sightings of the occasional dispersing wolf rolling through Banff.
“The wolves usually den the third week in April and, because the breeding male has a GPS collar, we can track his movements and I was astonished to find him spending a lot of time in Spray Valley,” he said.
“We don’t conduct direct den site observations because it has a high potential to disrupt wolves and cause den abandonment, so we’ll have to wait and see if pups show up.”
The den site is located in an area where Parks Canada implements a seasonal closure in the Spray River Valley from April 15 to Nov. 15 because it’s one of three core areas in the national park with high concentrations of female grizzlies.
“We’re finding wolves and grizzly bears spend a lot of time in these closed areas because they’re secure, safe and have lots of habitat,” said Whittington.
To Whittington’s knowledge, wolf 1501 and the young female in the pack were together in March, but have not been seen together in April or early May. Based on reports and observations, the female appears to be travelling on her own.
She’s fitted with a VHF collar, requiring park crews to do ground-based telemetry to pick up her signal, and Whittington said she’s been travelling between Banff and Lake Louise, including along Bow Valley Parkway.
“It’s unlikely she, herself, is denning, but we don’t know for sure whether or not wolves are denning in the Bow Valley,” he said.
Whittington said she could try to make the Bow Valley home, or go in search of a new pack. Approximately 10 per cent of a given wolf pack will disperse each year in looking to establish their own territories or find mates.
“We don’t know what she’ll end up doing, but it will be interesting to watch,” he said.
“It might depend on whether 1501 continues to use the Bow Valley as part of his home range, and I suspect he will. She might rejoin her father or she might toddle off on her own.”
Günther Bloch, an internationally respected wolf behaviour expert who has studied wolves in Banff National Park dating back 30 years, has a theory on what’s happening with wolf 1501.
Bloch speculates he hooked up with a female wolf, perhaps with a female from a nearby pack, such as the Fairholme or Spray area, on his documented travels east of Banff to Canmore in March.
He said he suspects 1501 then went back to his offspring – the male and female of the Bow Valley pack.
“My theory is the female probably did successfully mate at the time and probably had binding with her family and didn’t go with him and stayed with her family,” said Bloch.
“When she became pregnant she had two choices – try to find the mate again or stay with her family, but she would be in competition with her mother, probably also having pups. Very rarely do mothers and daughters raise pups together.”
With the high peak of mating season in February, Bloch said a low-ranking female of a pack can be in heat two weeks later than their mothers – and it’s highly possible that’s what happened.
“Biologically, the reason is if a breeding female in a family gets killed or lost, then a little time later there’s an opportunity for that wolf group, through a younger female being later in heat, that they’re a functioning pack.”
Bloch said one of the options for 1501 after Parks Canada shot the alpha female last year was to breed with his daughter and, although that’s rare, he has documented two inbreeding cases in the Bow Valley – 1995 and 2008.
“Both didn’t work very well, because even if inbreeding is successful in producing pups, it doesn’t mean there’s good potential to get them raised. There’s no normal social structure,” he said. “Wolves usually prefer to avoid inbreeding, so that he is denning with a female in the Spray is the most likely.”
