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Yellowstone Science A quarterly publication devoted to the natural and cultural sciences Predator Restoration Realities Wolves: The Next Generation Early Yellowstone Narratives Probing Old Faithful Volume 3 Number 3 Remembering Ten Even in a group of wolves death personally. This that were, because of the historic beautiful animal, its offspring, circumstances, extraordinary, and the resource they are a part of Number Ten stood out. A large, deserved better than such mindless hu- gray male with Hollywood-perfect aggression, but man violence. But it would be too easy, photogeneity, he arrived in Yellowstone he didn’t run away, either. and ultimately quite destructive, to make from Alberta on January 19, and was His behavior brought him great admira- too much of Ten’s death—to turn this placed in the pen at Rose Creek with a tion and high hopes for what he might wild animal into a martyr to human fool- mother and daughter pair, Nine and Seven, bring to the Yellowstone wolf population ishness. The wolves are already over- who had arrived on January 12. Nine, the gene pool, as it brought fear that this was loaded with symbolism that has little to mother, was believed to be in estrous, and just the sort of behavior that might get do with their real lives. The illegal killing was herself regarded with special interest him killed. of Ten may be symptomatic of many for that reason. Nine and Ten got along No secret had been made that wolves things, but it also might be viewed merely famously, and signs were good that they would be lost in this project; the officially as proof that a few people haven’t learned had mated by the time their pen was announced projection was that 20 per- to use their firearms responsibly, rather opened on March 22. cent or more of the wolves would die of a than as a broader indication that a lot of What made Ten stand out was his sin- variety of causes in these first years. But misguided people are out there randomly gular behavior when humans were around. I don’t think many of us were prepared to gunning for gorgeous predators. Twice a week, biologists brought meat to lose Ten, certainly not so soon or so We should probably remember Ten for the pens, dragging in various elk, deer, pointlessly. In late April, as he and Nine lots of things, including his exhilarating moose, and bison parts and leaving them were roaming the country near Red Lodge, beauty and his exciting sense of himself for the wolves. The wolves in all three Montana, he was illegally shot, skinned, in our presence. We should probably pens became agitated as soon as they and beheaded by a man who was later resist remembering him too much for were aware of the approaching biolo- apprehended. Nine gave birth to eight being a victim, if only because that ulti- gists, and typically fled to the far end of pups about the same time, on private mately will just cheapen his memory and the acre-size enclosures, where they paced property about four miles from Red make us think too much like the person or ran anxiously back and forth along the Lodge. Without her mate, her chances of who killed him. Anyway, with a little fence. All the wolves, that is, except Ten. raising the pups, or of surviving herself, luck perhaps we’ll also get to remember Ten took a more assertive position, run- were slight, and so she was captured and him through seeing some of his pups as ning wide circles around the people as returned to her pen on Rose Creek. they make their own ways across the they worked. He never exhibited It was impossible not to take Ten’s Yellowstone landscape. PS Yellowstone Science A quarterly publication devoted to the natural and cultural sciences Volume 3 Number 3 Summer 1995 Doug Smith/NPS Table of Contents A Journey Toward the Center of the Earth 2 The first video probe of Old Faithful's "plumbing." by Susan W. Kieffer, James A. Westphal, and Roderick A. Hutchinson Wolf Realities 6 What wolves mean now, and what they will mean in the future. Interview with L. David Mech Black-throated Sparrow in Yellowstone 12 The park's newest rare bird. by Terry McEneaney Editor Paul Schullery Two Little-Known References to the Yellowstone Art Director Country from the 1860s 13 Renée Evanoff The latest discoveries of the earliest accounts. Associate Editor by Lee Whittlesey Sarah Broadbent Editorial Assistant Ursula Weltman Review 15 Mountains and Plains, by Dennis H. Knight Research Mark Johnson Reviewed by Cathy Whitlock Printing Artcraft Inc. News and Notes 17 Bozeman, Montana Wolf update • Predator conference speakers • Volcanic hazards • Obsidian conference • Research summary • Bear conference On the cover: Greater Yellowstone Science is published quarterly, and submissions are welcome from all investigators Yellowstone's first known wolf conducting formal research in the Yellowstone area. Editorial correspondence should be sent to puppies in more than 60 years the Editor, Yellowstone Science, Yellowstone Center for Resources, P.O. Box 168, Yellowstone National Park, WY 82190. were born near Red Lodge, Mon- tana, in late April, and trans- The opinions expressed in Yellowstone Science are the authors' and may not reflect either ported to a pen in the Lamar National Park Service policy or the views of the Yellowstone Center for Resources. Valley in May. See the story on Copyright © 1995, the Yellowstone Association for Natural Science, History & Education. page 17. NPS photo by Doug Support for Yellowstone Science is provided by the Yellowstone Association for Natural Smith. Science, History & Education, a nonprofit educational organization dedicated to serving the park and its visitors. For more information about the Yellowstone Association, including membership, write to P.O. Box 117, Yellowstone National Park, WY 82190. A Journey Toward the Center of the Earth Video Adventures in the Old Faithful Conduit by Susan W. Kieffer, James A. Westphal, and Roderick A. Hutchinson Why would a researcher spend the volcanoes. She had some ideas about The three authors, Sue, Jim, and Rick, major part of her professional career heat and mass transfer in volcanoes and from left to right, prepare equipment. All studying Old Faithful Geyser? And why about how complex gassy fluids moved photographs and drawings courtesy of would a team of three researchers spend when volcanoes erupted. To test these Susan Kieffer. a major part of a year designing, building, concepts, she decided to see if she could and lowering a video camera down into understand the heat and mass transfer any erupting volcano. the formidably hot and tortuous conduit? and the eruptions of Old Faithful—a Kieffer started her work using her fam- Researcher Susan Kieffer started study- smaller, more regular, simpler, and far ily bank account to buy a super-8 camera ing Old Faithful in 1976 as an analog to more accessible geological feature than and to fund the drive to Yellowstone, and 2 Yellowstone Science she had her 8-year-old son as a field assistant. She obeyed strict park rules about remaining on the boardwalks for observations, filming eruptions from a distance and analyzing the movies to de- termine how fast the fluid comes out of the vent (about 180 miles per hour!). However, a major problem was that the real action of Old Faithful occurs under- ground, as every observer who sits pa- tiently through episodes of Old Faithful’s “preplay” (the time when the geyser oc- casionally spurts small amounts of water The video camera, in the foreground, is only about 2 inches in length. Behind it is the prior to a full eruption) knows. Where thermally-insulated container in which it is lowered into the conduit. The tape marks does water enter the conduit? What is its are at 1-foot intervals. temperature? How much of it is there? Does it heat up between eruption cycles? sors at 10-foot intervals so that the re- the MacArthur funds to answer the ques- Or, does it enter so hot that it actually searchers could measure temperature and tion of what was happening in the depths cools down while waiting to erupt? pressure every 10 feet in the conduit. of Old Faithful. Again with his colleague Kieffer brought seismometers to Old With Westphal and Kieffer manning Victor Nenow, he designed and built a Faithful in the late 1970s and early 1980s various electronic and pressure controls vacuum-insulated ice-cooled video sys- and monitored the seismicity in an at- and sensors, park research geologist Rick tem to lower into Old Faithful. Two tempt to decipher the underground activ- Hutchinson inserted the probe into the versions have now been built and in- ity by remote observations. During that geyser during the spring and fall of that serted into the geyser, each carrying its work, she discovered that Old Faithful year. The scientists were able to record own lighting system to illuminate the has seismic signals much like those ob- the rise of water from nearly 70 feet deep conduit, two thermocouples to monitor served at active volcanoes—so-called in the conduit up to about 16 feet during the conduit and camera temperature, and harmonic tremor, or long-period volca- the geyser’s recharge cycle because each leads to send the information back to nic seismicity. Those signals told her that sensor recorded the increasing pressure monitors and recorders on the surface. there was enough heat in the system to as water rose up the length of the probe. What does the conduit look like? Where boil at least some of the water during the Wild fluctuations recorded by the tem- the conduit intersects the surface, it is an intervals between eruptions.

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