TIME-TEMPERATURE- WEATHER:

Early AM (first light-9AM): 23 degrees at 5:40. Approx 2 inches of overnight snow. Still falling. Plow came by

Late AM (9-noon) 28 at 11AM as I go east to SG

Evening: 4:30-9PM Back to SG at 7:40PM

Snow Level (roads/landscape): Snow all morning, making early viewing quite difficult. A few welcome breaks of visibility starting around 7:30AM. Squalls of snow, sometimes heavy, sometimes light, come and go all day. About an inch or two accumulation (not much)

CROWD: a few less today due to weather

OVERNIGHT NEWS: Junctions have a new carcass visible from LCW

SUMMARY FOR THE DAY: This morning is spent watching 10 Junctions on their new carcass from LCW, upper LCW and Slough roadside. One black was in den area during the morning. We saw no wolves this evening.

WOLF SIGHTINGS (total; pack; individuals, pullout, time of day): 10 total wolves

10 Junctions 7B/3G (the missing black is on the north side by Bill around 9AM). Falling snow and distance made it hard to tell individuals. Those who saw the event last night had a count of 10 also.

NON-WOLF SIGHTINGS (what & where)

Bison: several small herds on Divide ridge interfere with wolves near their carcass throughout the late morning. Seen from LCW

Coyotes: 3 peeking out at the carcass from the edge of the forest while wolves were bedded. A couple snuck pieces then ran away.

EARLY MORNING HIGHLIGHTS (first light till 9AM) I join watchers at Lamar Canyon West. Geoff and Jakob are very helpful.

For the first hour or so, I see nothing or only vague shapes. At 7:30 the snow backs off a bit and I finally see wolves; 6 blacks and 1 gray. Later when snow lifts more, I see all 10 (7B/3G).

Wolves come and go from the carcass to their beds near the forest. Around 8:30 they are pushed from their bedding spots by an arriving bison herds. They move slightly closer to us and for a while are easier to see.

Coyotes start to appear in the forest behind where the wolves had been bedded. They sneak in to grab a morsel, then dash away to eat it in the forest.

Around 9AM, I move higher to the original LCW lot where Michelle has found a better view. A second bison herd arrives and moves the wolves a second time. The wolves offer little resistance and some head into the eaves of the Divide forest, but remain visible.

Some of those bison move the wolves a third time. This time the wolves move deeper into the forest and look like they might he heading to Lamar.

I drive to Coyote to check. Nothing. Heavy snow starts falling at 10:45 so I go east.

EVENING HIGHLIGHTS (4:30PM-9PM) Despite the continued snowfall and 23 degree cold I go out tonight and check Dorothys, Lamar Canyon West, Slough and Crystal but find no wolves. The sky is slate gray and snow is falling but visibility is fine. If wolves had been outm I would have seen them.

WHAT I MISSED: The single black near the eastern trees that Bill saw

TODAY I SAW: bison, coyotes, 10 Junction wolves (all but one black) and the spirits of Allison, Richard, Jeff and Chloe

ALPHABETICAL LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

DF: Diagonal Forest (a feature east of the Slough den)

DPH: Dead Puppy Hill, the partly treed hill below the crest of Mt. Norris immediately south of Footbridge pullout. Named by coyote researchers before the 1995 wolf reintroduction. The hill has been a popular area with local wolf packs since wolves were reintroduced. It has held several coyote dens over the years, but to my knowledge, this year is the first time a wolf pack has denned on it. The Mollies chose an area on the western slope above the new growth forest, and produced at least two pups, one black and one gray, which were seen infrequently during June.

HF: Horizontal Forest (another feather east of the Slough den

HR: Hellroaring (large overlook pullout on the Blacktail)

LCW: Lamar Canyon West (pullout on the western side of Lamar Canyon) that overlooks a lot of, but not all of, the area wolves use at Slough.

MST: Marge Simpson Tree (distinctive tree in Slough Flats) In 2024, the Junctions used the meadows below and left of Marge as their August-October rendezvous.

OGR: "The OGR" Old Gardiner Road (current name for the new road hastily constructed after the 2022 flood on top of the former gravel road between Mammoth and Gardiner)

RP: Round Prairie (big meadow south of Pebble Creek campground)

SB: Soda Butte (or SBV Soda Butte Valley) where Soda Butte Creek flows between Round Prairie and its Confluence with the Lamar River)

SG: Silver Gate (small town just outside the northeast Park entrance)

SRT: Southern Round Tree (distinctive tree south of the Marge Simpson Tree)

UCG: Un-collared gray (Junction 2 yr-old bouncy male). Born to the Rescue Creek Pack, he joined the Junction Pack sometime in February 2025.

YGM: Yellow Grass Meadow (a feature east of and upslope of the Horizontal forest at Slough)