Spitfire, the Yellowstone gray wolf known to scientists as 926F, was shot by a hunter on 24 November 2018, about a mile outside the park’s northeast boundary between Silver Gate and Cooke City, Montana. The killing was legal under Montana law: wolves are protected inside Yellowstone, but once they cross the unmarked park line they can be hunted during the state season. Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks reviewed the case and confirmed the hunter had followed the rules.
Spitfire was seven years old, the longtime lead female of the Lamar Canyon pack, and one of the most watched wolves in the world. Her death, six years after her famous mother was killed in almost the same way, reopened a long-running argument about whether park wolves deserve a protected buffer when they step across the boundary.
Who was Spitfire?
Spitfire was born in April 2011 in the Lamar Valley, the broad, road-accessible valley in Yellowstone’s northeast where visitors with spotting scopes gather at dawn. She was a small black wolf with a notch in her right ear and, in later years, a greying face. Her mother was 832F, better known as “06”, and her father was 755M.
Her life was a run of close calls. As a pup she survived an attack on her family by a large rival pack. In the winter of 2012 to 2013 she lost a packmate and then her mother to hunters outside the park, and her father left. In 2013 she paired with a male, 925M, and became the pack’s breeding female. Mange wiped out most of her first litter in 2014, leaving one daughter, later called Little T. In 2015 her mate died after leading a much larger pack away from the family, and days later a pregnant Spitfire faced four big males from that pack and walked away unharmed.
By 2018 she had handed the breeding role to Little T. Long-time Yellowstone naturalist Rick McIntyre summed her up by saying she “always figured out a way to survive, to carry on.”
The daughter of 06, Yellowstone’s best-known wolf
Spitfire’s mother was born in 2006, which is where her nickname came from. 06 founded the Lamar Canyon pack in 2010 and became one of the most photographed wolves in Yellowstone because her territory lay right along the park road. She was reputed to be a skilled elk hunter, and wildlife watchers followed her life almost daily.
On 6 December 2012, 06 was shot near Crandall, Wyoming, outside the park. It was a legal harvest. The New York Times covered her death, and she was widely described in the press as the most famous wolf in the world, a phrase used in headlines by National Geographic and Salon.
Journalist Nate Blakeslee told her story in the 2017 bestseller American Wolf: A True Story of Survival and Obsession in the West, which also became the subject of a National Geographic documentary. For many readers, Spitfire’s death felt like the sequel no one wanted.
How wolves came back to Yellowstone
Wolves were hunted, trapped and poisoned out of Yellowstone in the early twentieth century, and for about 70 years the park had no resident packs. Between 1995 and 1997, 41 wild wolves captured in Canada and northwest Montana were released in the park. One of the first was wolf No. 9, from Alberta, and Spitfire was her great-great-great-granddaughter.
The return of wolves is one of the best-studied conservation projects in the world. The National Park Service has counted roughly 100 wolves in about ten packs in recent decades, with numbers rising and falling with disease, prey and conflicts between packs. It estimates around 500 wolves across the wider Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem. Wolves have also become a draw for tourists: the Wolf Conservation Center has argued that “Yellowstone wolves are worth a lot more alive than dead.”
Why the killing was legal
Yellowstone’s borders are invisible to a wolf. Packs follow elk and bison, and in winter they often drift into the national forest and private land just outside the park, where state rules apply. Montana, Idaho and Wyoming all hold wolf hunting seasons as part of managing their populations.
Montana law does not allow a hunting buffer zone around the park. Instead, at the time, the state set small quotas in the two hunting districts on Yellowstone’s northern edge; the New York Times reported a limit of two wolves in each. Once those quotas were met, hunting closed in those districts.
Abby Nelson, a wolf specialist with Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks, said everything about how the wolf was taken was legitimate. She also noted that the pack had shown signs of habituation to people, which may explain why the loss hit observers so hard. Wolves that grow up around roadside crowds can become less wary of humans, and that familiarity can make them easier targets outside the park.
The hunter reported the kill, tagged the animal and later met state officials. Some advocacy groups still disputed the legality and called for a boycott of his business, and he received death threats. Disagreement over policy is legitimate; harassment of an individual who acted within the law is not.
The buffer zone debate
Advocates argue that a narrow no-hunting zone around the park would protect a handful of wolves that are scientifically valuable, emotionally important to millions of visitors, and central to a local wildlife-watching economy. The president of the advocacy group Wolves of the Rockies pointed to Spitfire’s death as a reason to strengthen protections for wolves that leave the park.
Hunting groups and many local residents counter that wolves outside the park are part of a recovered population that the states are entitled to manage, that the existing quotas already limit the take near Yellowstone, and that a special zone for “famous” animals mixes sentiment with science. Ranchers also worry about livestock losses.
The science adds a nuance both sides sometimes miss. Losing a breeding adult can matter more than the raw number suggests, because wolf packs depend on experienced leaders to hunt and defend territory. After Spitfire’s death, Yellowstone wolf biologist Doug Smith said the survival of the remaining Lamar Canyon wolves was an open question.
What happened to the Lamar Canyon pack
After the shooting, Little T and her sister Dot, along with the year’s pups, were heard howling in the valley for some time. The two sisters took over as the pack’s leaders, and Little T raised four surviving pups in 2019, seen at times in the Round Prairie and Lamar Valley areas.
Spitfire’s line therefore did not end with her. Her story, and her mother’s, are still told by guides in the Lamar Valley, and they remain the clearest examples of how a park boundary that people draw on a map means nothing to an animal that lives by following its prey. If you visit, the best chances of seeing wolves are at dawn and dusk from the valley pullouts, with binoculars or a scope and a respectful distance; park rules require you to stay at least 100 yards from wolves.
Sources: Wikipedia: 926F (Spitfire); Wikipedia: O-Six; CBS News / Associated Press; The New York Times; National Park Service: Wolves in Yellowstone; first reported via Powerful Mind.
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