THEY CALLED HER TRIPOD – THE WOLF WITH A FIERCE GREEN FIRE
By Leo Leckie
October 23, 2018
October 23, 2018
On January 24, 2008, a little gray wolf was radio-collared as 632Fg. She was born almost four years earlier in April 2004 into the Cougar Creek Pack in the beaver-rich heartland of Yellowstone’s Madison Valley. She was the daughter of the Cougar Creek alpha pair 151Fg and 257Mg.
Her remarkable mother founded the Cougar Creek Pack in 2000 and came from the illustrious and celebrated bloodline of 7Fg and 2Mb, the founding alpha female and male of the first-ever naturally forming pack in Yellowstone National Park, the Leopolds.
The Leopold Pack is one of only three Yellowstone wolf packs named after humans – all other packs being named after a significant geographical feature within the pack’s territory. They were named after Aldo Leopold, who in the 1949 book, “A Sand County Almanac” retells of his gunshot from a rim rock in Arizona that started a shift in his thinking. “We reached the old wolf in time to watch a fierce green fire dying in her eyes. I realized then, and have known ever since, that there was something new to me in those eyes — something known only to her and to the mountain. I was young then, and full of trigger-itch; I thought that because fewer wolves meant more deer, that no wolves would mean hunters’ paradise. But after seeing the green fire die, I sensed that neither the wolf nor the mountain agreed with such a view.” Aldo Leopold became an early proponent from then on of wolf restoration in the Lower 48.
That fierce green fire that changed Aldo Leopold’s life lived on in that little four-year-old gray wolf radio-collared in 2008.
You see, she was affectionately nicknamed “Tripod” because she was missing her left hind leg below the hock. This injury had occurred years earlier and she may have possibly lost it in a snare along the park boundary.
Despite falling behind at times, she was able to keep up with her Cougar Creek packmates all those years.
And then, quite remarkably, during the mating season in February 2009, Tripod joined with dispersing males from the Gibbon Meadows Pack (647Mg and his brother 687Mb) to become the founding members of the Grayling Creek Pack, occupying a new territory just north of her natal territory.
And even more remarkably, this three-legged wolf with the fierce green fire in her heart and spirit became the alpha female of the new Grayling Creek Pack and gave birth to two surviving pups in April 2009!
On November 5, 2009, she was killed by wolves from a rival pack while defending her homeland. Her alpha mate 647Mg and an uncollared adult female continued to care for her two pups.
Defying the odds and touching our hearts, her fierce green fire is a poignant reminder of the enduring spirit in wolves … a fierce green fire that will not be forgotten!
This story came together through researching the Yellowstone Wolf Family Tree. You can find out more about Tripod and the other amazing wolves of Yellowstone National Park by becoming a guest of the Yellowstone Wolf Family Tree. Visit www.wolfgenes.info, select the Ancestry tab and follow the Invitation section instructions to become a guest of the tree.
(Photo from the Yellowstone Wolf Family Tree / NPS and taken during radio-collaring in 2008 -- note the human hand showing the missing leg.)
