Interaction between Mollie's and Junction Butte packs in Yellowstone National Park (January 2024)

On January 4th 2024 at about 8am in Yellowstone National Park, two separate wolf packs called the Junction Butte pack and the Mollie's pack came together in a tense reunion which ended amicably. In addition, a dispersing black wolf (1407M) from the Willow Creek pack is seen attentively trying to figure out the players surrounding him. Howling and other wolf communication can be heard throughout this video. Acoustic recorders also captured the two packs chorus howling towards one another the night before. Wolves have many variations of howls with which to communicate, though little is known as to whether different types have different functions. There is reasonable evidence, however,  that larger bodied wolves have lower pitched howls, which can serve as an honest signal to other wolves about their size. In addition, barks (which you'll hear in one segment of this video) definitely have a different function than howls. Barks come in different forms such as woofs, disturbance barks (which are shorter in duration and lower in pitch) and agonistic barks (which are longer in duration and have more harmonics). Agonistic barks are often emitted by the dominant individual and often show dominance displays (e.g. tail held high). Disturbance barks are only emitted in conflict scenarios…for example towards other packs, humans, cougars or bears. There are several types of different howls in this video, many of which we are still trying to decipher as to possible functions. In addition, at 4:28 in to the video you'll hear a "woa" vocalization from several wolves off camera when a group of the wolves first reunited, and towards whom a different black wolf is running. The "woa" call is done in contexts of social bonding where wolves are often muzzling one another. The Cry Wolf project (grizcam.com/crywolf) is studying the frequency at which wolves vocalize to better model their population and occupancy, as well as the different functions of their sounds.

• #pets_animals
• #greater_yellowstone
• #montana
• #wolves
• #interpack_communication
• #howling