Storied Alaska wolf pack beloved for decades has vanished, thanks to hunting

Date: 
August 9, 2016
Article source: 
The Washington Post

For decades, the wolves of the storied East Fork pack were beloved by researchers and tourists alike at Alaska’s Denali National Park. They frequented the park’s entrance and roads and became the stars of hundreds of thousands of family vacation photos.

Since the 1930s, scientists have documented every detail of the pack’s lives: their hunting ranges, mating rituals, even the content of their droppings. They traced family lineage through dozens of generations, giving individual wolves names like “The Dandy,” “Grandpa” and “Robber Mask.”

Now the researchers must record one final detail in the wolves’ long history: They may all be dead.