Chasing wolves with painball guns - Part 2

A few days later, I became Paintball Rambo.

The second adventure took place during my second tour at the Gila Cliff Dwellings National Monument. After several volunteers and staff had patrolled the park for several weeks, I was asked to return - actually, it was my last week of work before driving to Missouri to start grad school.

I reluctantly drove back, remembering the incredibly socially awkward fisheries scientists, and stopping by a store in Silver City to purchase a mattress pad for the back of the Ford Explorer. After my previous, extremely boring 4-hour-each-way drive with no radio, I had rigged up a handy system with my iPod, plugged into my iHome, plugged into a power converter, plugged into the cigarette lighter, so I could sing my head off and make the drive a bit less monotonous. It worked beautifully, except that the iHome wall transformer was huge and heavy and, if I stopped suddenly or hit a bump, the whole ensemble collapsed.

The first few days were uneventful, me continuing my nightly patrols and daily naps, stalking the screened-in porch during the days to enjoy the view of the Gila River and read one of the many books I'd brought with me. A woman who worked for Defenders of Wildlife, named Cynthia, had been in the area as well, talking with ranchers and campers and overall trying to, in whatever ways she could, change people's minds about wolves. Although I had mixed feelings about Defenders of Wildlife, this particular woman was extremely level-headed, drawing from a lifetime of experience living and working alongside ranchers, with a clear understanding of the challenges they faced and the reasons they disliked the wolves. She cruised around Gila Hot Springs and the National Monument doing her thing, while I cruised around doing mine, and occasionally our vehicles met and we rolled down the windows to chat for a few minutes. I kept her updated on what the wolves were doing - which, that week, was primarily staying off to the west and north of the Monument. I was counting down the days until I left for Missouri, just hoping the wolves would continue to behave themselves and make my job easier (though, admittedly, much less exciting).

The last night, however, things changed.

It was early in the evening, and as I started my patrol, I turned on my telemetry receiver and listened with surprise as both the wolves' signals came booming in.

I cruised westward toward the Monument, hopping out of the truck every few minutes to roughly triangulate their position. They were together, just north of the main road, probably on top of the first ridge. At the corral, I decided I was close enough that I could run up there with my paintball gun and chase them back northward. As quickly as I could, I grabbed the H-antenna, paintball gun, and an extra load of paintballs, locked the car, and sprinted up the scrubby hillside. I had a little waist pack that could hold the telemetry receiver, and I stuffed the pack of paintballs in it with my headlamp and car keys. The sun had set, but there was still plenty of light.

At the top of the hill, I listened to the signals, which still were booming in. Gain low. Signal strength high. They were here, somewhere, probably watching me, their rusty fur blending perfectly with the rocks and dirt in the dim light. I switched off the receiver and listened. All was silent.

Even though I couldn't see them, they were so close that I figured this would be the best location to fire at them. I strained to remember the exact radio conditions that previous time with James, when the figure of the male wolf had materialized through the fog not 50 yards from where I stood. I might even hit them, wherever they were. It would be better to fire now, make some noise, than try to sneak closer and let them slink off on their own terms.

So I slung the paintball gun to my shoulder and pulled the trigger.

Nothing.

The CO2 canister was empty.

Frustrated, I threw it across my back, took the receiver and antenna in my right hand, and started running north like a maniac, yelling as loud as I could in as low a voice as I could, trying to make myself sound as scary and intimidating as possible.

Once atop that first ridge, the ground sloped up and down in a more or less gentle undulation of continuous, low hills. The Middle Fork of the Gila River flowed parallel to my right - eastward - where it swept past the Visitors Center and joined the West Fork in a broad, sandy wash near the intersection of the roads. Here, where they met, the rivers had carved the hills I now ran on into steep cliffs between them, which gradually lowered the further they got from the confluence.

I continued chasing the wolves, pausing at the top of each little hill to check the telemetry. They kept moving northward, but also eastward, toward the Middle Fork north of the Visitors Center. I knew about the cliff, and knew I was approaching it, but since the signals were still so strong, I assumed the wolves were still up on top with me. However, after a few more minutes of jogging, I reached the brink and stared down, thirty feet above the broad bank sloping gently down to the water. The wolves were already in the valley.

I really didn't want them to go back south; south and east was Gila Hot Springs. There was no way I could get down from where I was, so I continued north, running a few paces from the edge, looking for a gully or some rocky stairs that would get me down, all the while monitoring the wolves' signals. To my dismay, as my H-antenna sought the radio signals, I found myself pointing southeast. They were headed right toward Gila Hot Springs and a smorgasbord of goats and sheep. The light was considerably dimmer now, the Visitors Center had long since closed, and I began to feel panic gripping the edges of my consciousness.

I urgently sought a way down and eventually found one, maybe five minutes after I'd reached the edge. I slunk and slid down the side and lurched through the shallow waters of the Middle Fork, running past the Visitors Center and hitting the pavement of the road. I imagined what an odd sight I must be - soggy boots, paintball gun in one hand and antenna in the other, running down the road as if all the hounds of hell were at my heels. By the time I crossed the bridge, the darkness was nearly complete, the sandy banks of the river a blue-gray shadow with the black water cutting through the middle.

When I reached the intersection with the main road, I checked the signals again and learned that the wolves hadn't crossed the road, but were heading toward the town along the northern ridge. Here, private property prevented me from following on foot, so I decided to fetch the truck. I jogged all the way and hopped in, throwing the paintball gun disdainfully on the floor, and sped back toward town as fast as I could.

I cruised the main road listening with the roof antenna, and soon learned that the wolves hadn't made it very far east yet. Their signals were relatively weak, bouncing in and out, suggesting to me that they were a ways uphill away from the road. I hoped that I had at least given them a scare and that they wouldn't try anything with the livestock tonight, and decided to monitor them every half hour. First, I had to make a phone call.

I headed back to the house of the awkward fisheries scientists and plugged my calling card numbers in. I reached my boss and told him that the wolves were now close to town, paraphrasing my adventure with the cliffs. He sounded unhappy, but also admitted that there was little I could do - since everything was private property, I could only monitor them and hope they didn't get into any trouble. I hung up the phone and headed back, parking my truck near the intersection of the main road and the road to the Visitor Center.

After a few minutes, a familiar truck pulled alongside me. Cynthia stepped out and walked to my open window. Before I could recount my tale, she trumped me with one of her own:

"Somebody spotted a mountain lion down there near the river this evening," she said. "Apparently it killed an elk and dragged it underneath the bridge, and is there right now eating it."

My heart jumped. I had been sprinting down that bridge like a lunatic not half an hour before. And all the while there'd been a mountain lion beneath my feet, eating an elk that it probably would have readily defended if it felt threatened.

I told her about the wolves, and she generously agreed to help me keep a lookout. Fortunately, the wolves never did get into trouble, at least not that night. It was a month or so later, when I was all settled in at graduate school, that I finally learned what became of the Laredo Pack.

One evening, the caretaker of a ranch saw the male wolf on his property. He reportedly mistook it for a feral German shepherd that was after his calves, shot it, and killed it. That could have been the end of it - Mexican wolves are all too frequently illegally shot, and there rarely is enough evidence to convict the perpetrator.

The wolf team noted his sudden absence and began searching for him from the airplane. Topography and, in this case, several feet of dirt or concrete, can hinder reception from the ground, but many times signals can still be detected aerially. The biologists quickly found themselves circling above a house in the vicinity of Gila Hot Springs and sent the USFWS Special Agent over to check things out. Apparently, the guy buried the carcass, or put it in his basement, or something - radio collar and all. Check out the news release here.

His mate high-tailed it, at least for a little while, and after that I'm not sure what happened to her. The ranch caretaker claimed to be a supporter of the reintroduction program, making an honest mistake about the identity of the animal threatening his employer's livestock.

I try not to make judgments about these things, even though they can be very emotionally charged. Heck, I fostered a lifetime fondness for the species, and then spent two weeks of my life staying up all night and sleeping in the back of a Ford Explorer trying to keep that wolf out of trouble, and he got shot anyway.

Maybe one day I'll write a post about my opinions on wolves, which, to say the least, have morphed greatly over time.