It was noted here a couple of weeks ago that wolf hunting near Yellowstone Park in Montana had been suspended due to a greater than expected number of wolf kills. Now it turns out that one of those wolves had a Minnesota connection.

In life, 527F was reclusive — even for an alpha-female wolf. Her territory was so remote that researchers studying wolves in Yellowstone National Park rarely saw her. But they knew a lot about her because for five years she wore a radio collar disclosing her travels, her mating and her kills.

In death, though, 527F is making an uncharacteristic publicity splash.

A hunter shot 527F on Oct. 3. She had strayed nearly a mile outside of Yellowstone into the Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness, where Montana had opened its first legal wolf-hunting season in decades. In all, four of the 10 Northern Rocky Mountain gray wolves in Yellowstone’s Cottonwood Pack, including one other radio-collared female, were shot.

The loss of 527F leaves a hole in research that had been under way at the University of Minnesota and elsewhere, said Daniel MacNulty, a U of M research associate.

The whole article, from MinnPost, is well worth reading. It goes in to some depth regarding the relationship between the Yellowstone wolves, elk, and local ranchers and hunters who tend to blame the wolves for everything that goes wrong with either their livestock and one of their, and the wolves, favorite game animals. The re-introduction of wolves in Yellowstone may look like a resounding success from a ways away, but it’s evident that the locals are still having some problems with it. Given ranchers and other inhabitants of the American West’s traditional attitudes toward wolves that’s hardly a surprise, but it’s still a fair bet that enthusiasm for killing wolves goes well beyond the limits set by wilflife managers on the scope of the wolf hunting season in Montana.