“ In all things nature, there is something of the marvelous.” Aristotle

Bounding across some of the west’s most remote wilderness, Wolf 314F embarked on a meandering excursion of over 1,000 miles through five states on her journey from Yellowstone to Colorado.

Gray Wolf In Yellowstone, Spring 2008This remarkable 18-month-old female covered an incredible distance since September in search of a mate and new territory. Although wolves can travel up to thirty miles a day, the animals rarely venture more than sixty miles from their base pack.

By the 1930s, wolves were facing near extinction in the Lower 48, the result of aggressive predator control programs. Colorado, like Yellowstone, eliminated its native wolf population, with the killing of Colorado’s last native wolf in 1943 (the last native wolf killed within Yellowstone’s boundaries was in 1926). Yellowstone’s wolf reintroduction in 1995 has been a successful program—perhaps in Colorado the wolves will someday reintroduce themselves.

Wolf 314F has earned my admiration. Like early pioneers or explorers, she  (in the words of Mark Twain), “lit out for the territory ahead of the rest,” with a wanderlust to venture into the unknown.