One of the main sights I wanted to see in Idaho was the Wolf Education and Research Center, located outside Winchester. The Center essentially takes in wolves or wolf/dog hybrids whose owners can't or won't care for them anymore. These animals don't know how to take care of themselves in the wild, and lack the instincts that tell them to stay away from people, so the Center provides them with a safe place to live, and an opportunity to study wolf behavior up close.
The Center essentially started with the formation of the Sawtooth Pack in 1991. Photographer Jim Dutcher wanted to do a documentary film on wolves, and spent several months living with the newly-formed pack in their original home outside Stanley, Idaho. This first pack consisted of one adult male, Akai, one adult female, Makuyi, and four pups (females Aipuyi and Motaki, and males Kamots and Lakota). As time passed, Makuyi was removed because of eye problems, and a year later, Akai went to a new home as well. At that point Kamots because the leader, or alpha male. More adults and pups were introduced: Motomo, Matsi, and Amani, all brothers in the same litter; Chemuhk, who would become the alpha female; male Wahots, and female Weyekin. The wolves' names, as you can probably tell, are taken from Native American languages, and generally describe something about the wolf.
Dutcher has produced both a movie, Wolf: Return of a Legend, and a book, The Sawtooth Wolves. There is also a documentary called Living with Wolves that presents much of the same information.
The pack moved to its present location in 1996.
Our guide met us at 4:30 in the afternoon. Morning and evening are the best time
to watch for the wolves, which live in large, wooded enclosures that provide space to roam (and hide). Our first walk around the pen revealed no animals in sight, so we moved on to the visitors' center, which was built to resemble a Nez Perce Indian lodge (at left). The WERC is actually located on Nez Perce land, and the inside of the lodge doors feature hand-carved pictures (one shown at right) done by a local artist.Our guide explained some of the wolves' biology -- what they eat (both in the wild and at the Center), their
life cycle, their physical characteristics, and their relationship to some of the other animals that live in the same habitat. He also talked about conservation efforts to preserve wolves, which have been on the Endangered Species list for many years. One of the most publicized pograms is the release of timber or gray wolves into the Yellowstone National Park back in 1995. Idaho, Montana, and other western states have preserveration plans for wolves and other animals.After the talk, we walked outside to the pens. I'm very pleased with the telephoto lens on my camera, as it got me some excellent pictures. We needed binoculars to actually see much of the animals, although after a while three of them came very close to the fence to sniff the air and see who we were. They must have been comfortable with our smells, because they hung around the fence wh
ere we could see them for several minutes.Right now, five wolves live in one enclosure. They form the Owyhee pack and are named A, B, C, D, and E while the Center's staff works with them and decide what official names to give them.
We also walked out to the enclosure that houses the last two members of the Sawtooth Pack, but didn't see either of them. Our guide told us this is not unusual; both animals are getting very old, by wolf standards, and even the staff doesn't see them much any more.
After two hours with the wolves, we drove on up the highway to Lewiston. However, before I describe that, I have to related a couple of incidents from Winchester. First, while I was in the local post office looking for the location of the WERC offices, I met one of the few unfriendly people we discovered in Idaho. He had noticed my T-shirt, which had a picture of a wolf on it, and proceeded to tell me how much he hated wolves and wanted to see them wiped out, and followed it up with stories about how wolves kill deer and other animals. I wonder if he realizes that wolves are carnivores, and eat other animals for a living, and that there's a valid ecological reason why they do that.
The other story is one of our official "trip stories". We seem to get at least a couple of these on each vacation. They're the stand-out experiences we have each time we travel. This time, we were looking for a place to eat, since we had gotten into town in early afternoon but couldn't meet with our guide until evening. Winchester is a small town and has only a handful of places to eat, but we located one restaurant that was supposed to close at 2 p.m. However, the waitresses told us to come in and order, since they were going to be there until 2:30 anyway, and had another customer finishing his meal.
For desert, we asked for a banana split, which was listed on the board. The waitress told us they had no bananas. (Yes, I'm familiar with the song, thank you....) My parents just kind of looked at each other, and then my father went out to the car and came back in with a banana. (Yes, he really did have bananas in the car.) He handed it to the waitress, who gave him a disbelieving look, and then went off to make our banana split. (And it was good, too!)
And, as promised, I have a library photo from Winchester. We spent over an hour exploring the Winchester Public Library's collection of books and magazines after lunch was finished. It's a nice little library with a small children's section, adult and young adult fiction, and adult non-fiction, as well as a couple of computers. Picture is at right.
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