It was the best of times. It was the worst of times.
Call it a tale of two winters.One occurred in 1988-89. The other took place a year ago. Both killed a lot of elk and both filled freezers for a lot of hunters. But there's a new twist in the equation - one that wasn't there nine years ago: It's one that eats a lot of elk, runs in packs and howls at the moon.
Elk numbers are down 30 percent in the northern Yellowstone herd and have been cut almost in half from peak levels reached in 1994.
No big surprise there. Last winter was a brutal one. Thick crust on the snow made it hard to find forage, hunters found easy work and thousands of elk starved to death.
The same thing happened in the winter of 1988-89.
As of late February, the herd measured 10,400 animals, down from 16,800 in late winter 1995, the last time a good count was made.
In the winter of 1988-89, the herd fell from 19,000 elk to just under 11,000. But the herd snapped back fast. By 1994, there were 19,000 animals in the herd again.
Biologists are wondering if that will happen this time.
"We've got wolf predation now," said Tom Lemke, area biologist for the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks. "That's going to be a factor in how fast they recover or if they recover. People perhaps are going to have to adjust to lower elk numbers for a number of years to come."
Since the elk herd is smaller and the number of wolves is growing, their impact on the elk is bigger than it would be with a larger herd, Lemke said. "The extent of that impact remains to be seen."
Doug Smith, Yellowstone National Park's chief wolf-recovery biologist, said there are three wolf packs in the northern part of the park. Each of them kills an estimated 150 to 180 elk a year. That's a total of 450 to 540 animals.
Plus, they kill an undetermined number of newborn elk calves in the late spring and early summer, making quick meals of the tiny animals.
"They hit the newborn elk calves pretty hard," Smith said. "How many, I don't know."
The number of calves is crucial to rebuilding a herd. Biologists gauge their survival with what they call a "recruitment rate," which is the number of calves per 100 cows that survive their first winter.
The average recruitment rate for the northern Yellowstone herd is about 35, Lemke said. This winter, which has been an easy one for elk, it is only eight.
In late winter 1990, a year after the last big winter kill, the recruitment rate was 19, more than twice as high.
That means the herd is as small as it's been in a long time and the number of calves is at a near record low.
Lemke said he has heard concerns that wolf predation may spell the end of the popular late-season hunt in the Gardiner area in January and February.
"I sincerely doubt that," he said. But if wolf predation means smaller elk numbers and smaller migrations out of the park, fewer hunters may be allowed to take to the field.