Editor's note: This story originally appeared in WyoFile .

YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK — If not for a series of tones broadcasting her location, no one would’ve known she had died.

Like dozens of other Yellowstone National Park wolves involved in a three-decade-long study, researchers collared wolf 1331F as a pup in 2021 to track her movements. Gray with ribbons of brown fur fading into her pale muzzle and legs, the young wolf lived with the Wapiti Lake Pack, one of the largest in Yellowstone.

Wildlife photographer V.C. Wald watched 1331 supervise black wolf pups hunting a wounded bison on the shore of the Gibbon River in the winter of 2023-’24. Easily visible from the road, the pups tried to take the bison head-on, only to scatter as it bluff charged. Then, 1331 demonstrated how to app

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