On Christmas Day 2024, tragedy struck Yellowstone’s Junction Butte wolf pack. The group’s legendary one-eyed leader, Wolf 907F, died after a confrontation with a rival pack. Now, in a new video, Junction Butte is hunting bison with members of that rival pack — albeit unsuccessfully.
Julie Argyle, a wildlife photographer and conservationist, filmed the Junction Butte gray wolves (Canis lupus) chasing two bison (Bison bison) as they attempted to separate a yearling calf from its mother, Cowboy State Daily reported.
The mother kept her body between the calf and the hungry wolves until the pair caught up with the rest of the group. Another adult bison then helped the mother fight off the wolves, ending the attempted hunt.
The video suggests that the Junction Butte wolf pack is back to full strength after losing Wolf 907F — thanks to some of the wolves that helped kill her.
Related: Reintroducing wolves to Yellowstone helped entire ecosystem thrive, 20-year study finds
The Junction Butte wolf pack made headlines under the enduring leadership of Wolf 907F. The “Queen of the Wolves” gave birth to a record-breaking 10 litters of pups and survived more than twice as long as most Yellowstone wolves — more than 11 years, compared with the average lifespan of up to five years.
Wolf 907F’s demise began on Dec. 22, 2024. The rival Rescue Creek pack set upon Wolf 907F and some of her pack — it was split at the time — while they fed on a bison carcass on the north side of the Yellowstone River. The Rescue Creek pack began as an offshoot of the Junction Butte pack and normally stayed south of the river. But this time, they opted to cross and attack Junction Butte. Wolves rarely die of old age in the wild, and in Yellowstone National Park, they’re often killed in territorial clashes with other wolves.
“In a protected place like Yellowstone, their number-one cause of death is when two packs fight with each other,” Kira Cassidy, a researcher at the Yellowstone Wolf Project, told Live Science last year, after Wolf 907F had her record-breaking 10th litter. “That accounts for about half of the mortality,” she added.
Wolf 907F was badly injured in the skirmish with the Rescue Creek pack, and data from her radio collar suggest she died Dec. 25. Her death came not long after the pack briefly ventured outside the park, where people shot and killed two other members of her pack.
In January, researchers spotted some of the Rescue Creek pack males with some of the remaining Junction Butte pack females. At the time, Cassidy told National Park Explorer that wolf mating season begins in February and it was likely that some of the wolves would change packs to mate.
The pack seems to be thriving again with males from the Rescue Creek pack, Cowboy State Daily reported. The wolves may have failed to kill the bison in the video, but taking down a bison is no easy task. The video shows that adult bison can put up a fight and will fiercely defend themselves and their herd.
