During some six decades of writing news stories and features professionally, it turns out I’ve told thousands of stories about people, events, random occurrences, trends, or observations.

It’s been a rewarding time, personally and professionally, lots of travel, fascinating events, some boring stuff, too. And kind, generous people who allowed me into their lives and took some time to share their thoughts, concerns, dreams, and stories so I could tell theirs better. I’ve written about many of them in this ongoing series of Memories. And there are more to come.

What I have not written about here, until now, is the story of a creature whose brief, wild life has intrigued and haunted me for a very long time. I’ve written on this proud creature elsewhere, but I keep returning to him for reasons you may come to understand.

This is The Story of Wolf No. 2. He was an involuntary immigrant from Canada. In the mid-1990s, he was romping in the deep snow with other wolf pups in the isolated woods of British Columbia.

One late winter’s day, a noisy, menacing machine suddenly appeared overhead, violating the forest’s silence. It hovered above the pups, who tried to flee toward sheltering fir branches nearby. But the white snow was deep and soft. The all-black wolf pup with the bushy tail was an easy target in the telescopic sight of the ranger’s tranquilizer gun.

In seconds, the young wolf was asleep. In minutes, he was en route with a few other youngsters to a new home in the 2.2 million acres of Wyoming’s Yellowstone National Park, the nation’s oldest.

Seventy-five years before, the U.S. federal government enforced a death-to-all-wolves policy, shooting, poisoning, whatever it took to kill the marauding murderers. They would have done the same to the region’s bears as well, except defiant Montanans said no, they’d lived with bear neighbors for a long while and could manage just fine.

Throughout history in literature, legend, and movies, wolves have endured a very bad public image. Recall “Little Red Riding Hood,” “The Three Little Pigs,” or “Peter and the Wolf.” The reputation of Nazi submarine wolf-packs didn’t help things either in World War II.

And Lon Chaney’s tortured transformations into a homicidal wolf under the light of a full moon left me shaken every time.

The trouble with wolves, you see, is that they kill other wildlife for food. It's not pretty to human eyes. But that’s how Nature works across species. Back then, however, park officials knew they knew better. And as regularly seems to happen with government actions, official decisions had unintended, damaging consequences.

By the 1990s, federal thinking had changed. That's because without wolves atop the food chain, park wildlife drifted out of balance. 

Coyotes were all over the place, killing everything in sight, even if it wasn’t diseased and slow. They sharply reduced the beaver population, whose dams made the ponds that caused delicious vegetation and aspen to flourish, which sheltered and fed abundant wildlife and held stream banks in place, especially during spring floods.

Without the threat of wolves culling their weak members, elk had taken over some valleys, consuming trees and plants that other species needed.

The new idea was to restore the balance with wolves, and No. 2 was a pioneer.

For acclimation, the Canadian creatures were kept first in a large fenced area with minimal human interaction, though some mornings the four-legged prisoners found road-kill strewn around. 

After a few months, the team of biologists and naturalists left the gates open. 

Strangely, nothing happened for days. 

Then, the humans grasped the wolves’ message: The wily animals didn’t trust human gates. So, the men cut a hole in the fence. And just like that, the wolves were sprinting into their new lives in a new territory.

No. 2 was among them.

Reintroducing wolves to northwest Wyoming was very controversial at the time. Newborn calves and pets can be easy pickings for wandering predators. There was a lot of human howling, which faded over time thanks to courts and patient political leaders.

The wolves had become accustomed to radio collars around their neck, beeping silent coded signals of their location and activities back to biologists. No. 2’s collar showed he never left the park. 

He had grown into a strong adult, about 130 pounds, 32 inches at the shoulder. Watching from afar, the teams could see he carried himself confidently, still with the regal black tail.

Even in the pen, other wolves seemed drawn to him, as happens to leaders. 

Wolves live in highly social communities with clear hierarchies controlling, for instance, who breeds and who eats first. A lone wolf is unacceptable, by definition, an outcast because of illness, maybe, weakness, or a bad personality, warranting exclusion. Such loners are perceived as alien threats to the pack’s food supply and bloodlines. 

Free once again to roam and forage among abundant prey, the newly-liberated wolves coalesced into temporary packs, basically hunting teams to get by while reconnoitering the area. 

After a few months of that, No. 2 and a few pals broke away. He took up with No. 7, a strong, outgoing female from another pack whose genes would assure a new mix. 

Watching from afar through telescopes and binoculars and from airplanes, researchers described them as a handsome, confident pair. The new pack of 12 to 15 settled on a den in the park’s northwest corner. 

And there, the next spring, No. 2 and No. 7 produced the first batch of Yellowstone wolf pups in decades.

The pair was what humans would call “exclusive.” No other male dared approach her. And at each winter’s mating season, No. 7 would bite the genitals of other females to discourage intimacy with her partner or weaker males. Crude, but effective birth control to ensure strong successors.

Over ensuing years, the wolf couple produced at least 29 pups who survived. The new ones hung around a year or so and then, having learned the rules and etiquette of a wolf pack, one day without ceremony or sentiment, most simply wandered off to join another pack or start their own wild dynasty.

Ten years after No. 7 and friends arrived from Canada, the park had nearly 150 wolves. They’d become top of the food chain. The coyote population dwindled, as did other sick or weak wildlife. Elk changed their grazing locations and let lowlands recover. Sometimes, lucky tourists would create minor traffic jams as they stopped to watch the wolves at a distance, lounging in the sun or loping into the shade.

From a distance, No. 2 seemed a generous leader. On hunting expeditions along forest trails, he would halt the pack and wait for older members to catch up.

One spring day early this century, No. 7 was walking near the edge of the pack’s turf, not too far from the den. Maybe her hearing had failed, or she’d not regained strength from the latest births. Something attacked and killed her.

Pack members of the widowed No. 2 took over pup care. Monitors, however, noticed No. 2 became less active. His collar beamed longer periods without movement. In the wild, that betrays weakness.

That fall, a male member of the pack, perhaps one of his own sons, challenged No. 2. Nature wants the strongest and fittest in charge. Researchers detected no great battle. No. 2 was older then and like his partner, perhaps tired or depressed, as elderly can get in decline.

The dethroned leader just walked away quietly, now a lone wolf. It was the first he’d ever been outside a supportive, collegial pack. For a few months, observers would see him trying to hunt by himself or walking amicably alongside another pack, perhaps one of his offspring. He appeared healthy, still with the impressive tail.

Even at a distance, No. 2 had become a favorite of the watching humans, respected for his quiet prowess and silent dignity. Researchers thought or hoped he might find an open corner somewhere and a new mate.

By that time, Yellowstone had been pretty well divvied up by wolf packs, making it difficult to set up anywhere without trespassing.

Then, on a New Year’s Eve, came a new signal from No. 2’s radio collar. It was strong, but ominous. Instead of the usual slow, rhythmic tone, the signal became rapid beeping, as programmed when No. 2 had not moved for five hours.

The team might not have done this for every wolf. But they set out on a search. It took three days. Eventually, they came into a clearing about the size of a modest backyard. 

It was the devastated scene of a fierce battle – snow disrupted by countless paw prints, torn vegetation, fistfuls of fur, and torn flesh.

And everywhere, the white snow was stained by blood. 

The searchers' fears were confirmed. 

They followed the stains perhaps 50 yards down a deer path. The bloody trail led to a low-hanging fir bough, the kind of sheltering place No. 2 was seeking when kidnapped years before.

There, on his side resting on the soft needles, they found the first arrival and last surviving transplanted wolf, now asleep forever. He’d grown grey around the muzzle, but remained sturdy to the end. 

No. 2 had clearly fought long and hard. To protect his rear, he’d backed up against an immense fallen log to keep attackers in front.  

But No. 2 was one against many. He was wiser than the attackers who caught him on their turf. But he was older and slower. And succumbed to countless stabbings by teeth.

The researchers removed his collar. They stood together for a few minutes quietly and respectfully. And they left No. 2 there beneath the sheltering fir he had chosen as his final resting place. 

Some seasons later, I visited that spot. The crows and eagles, the coyotes and ants had all done their assigned work. Nothing goes to waste in the wild. Even field mice get nutrition gnawing bone bits.

No. 2’s genes and teachings live on now in his scattered progeny and their progeny, as they will in their progeny and far, far beyond. As they continue the cycle that he pioneered. 

Nothing remains of his remains now. Nothing, except the true story of the unusual life of a wolf named No. 2.

This is the 31st in an ongoing series of personal memories. Links to all the others are below.

That Time I Wore $15K in Cash Into a War Zone 

I Fell in Love With the South, Despite That One Scary Afternoon 

Wildfires I've Known 

More Memories: Neat People I've Met Along the Way 

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