A pup born to one of Yellowstone National Park's transplanted Canadian wolves last year may be forming the park's fourth wolf pack.
Biologists who are watching over this year's batch of 17 transplanted wolves, still being held in pens to become acclimatized, say the young female has been joined by a young male that broke away from another pack.If they stay together, they would become the fourth wolf pack residing in Yellowstone, where a federal campaign exterminated wolves as pests decades ago.
The female, known as No. 7, is one of eight pups born near Red Lodge last spring. Biologists moved pups and mother to a pen along Rose Creek inside the park, but No. 7 split away when they were released and has been wandering the northern edge of the park.
Her new traveling companion is dubbed No. 2, a young male from the Crystal Bench wolf pack that formed from last year's transplants.
"We had been wondering what No. 7 was going to do out there by herself, and hopefully now she has a mate," said park spokeswoman Cheryl Matthews.