This year’s lone surviving pup from a popular Yellowstone National Park wolf pack has expressed herself as a survivor and a force.
Taylor Rabe, a Yellowstone Wolf Project researcher, shared the accompanying footage showing the young wolf issuing an “adult-like howl” before continuing across the wintry landscape.
Rabe stated via Instagram: “Extra sassy + extra cute — featuring the Junction Butte pack’s one and only surviving puppy this year. This female pup is about 7 months old, and not too small anymore (listen to her new adult-like howl).”
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The Junction Butte pack inhabits the park’s northern range.
Life is difficult for all park wolves, which are vulnerable to attacks by other wolves and the large critters wolves prey upon in order to survive – and by hunters and trappers if wolves wander beyond park boundaries.
Rabe explained that the Junction Butte pack produced two litters this year and that researchers “had visuals on multiple puppies born, but we’ll never know why she was the only one that survived.”
Rabe’s post has two click-through portions: one featuring the howl and the other showing the the wary predator on the move sporting a thickening winter coat.
Stated Rabe: “She’s quite beautiful now, and continues to grow like a weed.”