Yellowstone’s beloved wild wolf ‘Spitfire’ is killed by a trophy hunter after wandering outside the national park
- A beloved wild wolf known as ‘Spitfire’ was killed by a trophy hunter when she wandered outside Yellowstone National Park.
- The seven-year-old wolf – known as Lamar Canyon Wolf Pack member 926F to scientists – was shot by a hunter in Montana last weekend.
- The wolf, also dubbed the Queen of the Lamar Valley by wolf enthusiasts, died the same way her famous mother, the alpha female wolf 832F, did in 2012.
- The leader of the Lamar Canyon pack, 832F was better known as 06 – a reference to the year she was born – and inspired the book American Wolf: A True Story of Survival and Obsession in the West.
I mention the above article because they used one of my photos of ‘Spitfire’.
I also photographed her mother, dubbed “the most famous wolf in the world,” who met a similar fate in 2012, and whose obituary was chronicled in the NYT.
https://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/09/science/earth/famous-wolf-is-killed-outside-yellowstone.html
Wolf enthusiasts vs. wolf haters rank up near climate change in terms of polarization, and a good overview of the problem, should you be interested, is the above-mentioned book, American Wolf: A True Story of Survival and Obsession in the West.
NOTE: Also included in the UK Daily Mail article are photos by Deby Dixon, acquaintance of mine, who posts daily from Yellowstone on a FB page you might be interested in.
Giblets & Flapdoodle 
This makes me sick. I’ll never understand trophy hunters. What’s the point? Except to stroke their fragile egos.
Joy
On Mon, Dec 3, 2018 at 12:08 PM Giblets & Flapdoodle wrote:
> oopsjohn posted: “Yellowstone’s beloved wild wolf ‘Spitfire’ is killed by > a trophy hunter after wandering outside the national park > https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6454433/Beloved-wild-wolf-nicknamed-Spitfire-killed-trophy-hunter.html > A beloved wild wolf kno” >
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I’m totally with you, Joy, but I’m also totally pessimistic that any die-hard enthusiast (about anything!) will ever change their minds.
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So very sad. I’ll never understand killing an animal for pleasure. If you’ve ever watched a pack of wolves in Yellowstone, they’re magnificent.
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Trophy hunting is a mindset I can’t fathom, either.
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Mixed emotions, Oops … very sad, upset about this latest “trophy hunter” episode … my guess is they hang just outside the Yellowstone border and wait for their opportunity.
But also glad to see your awesome photos, moments of fame with some of your photos and for making us a part of the Trophy Hunter Scene.
Sorry for your loss … HUSS
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They do indeed wait for famous wolves to come across the border, and then brag when they bag them. There are even sick websites that show wolves trapped and then tortured. Actually, in this case, it may not have been entirely legal as there is developing information that two or more hunters may have been in radio contact while tracking wolves, which is not allowed.
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Tears
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Thanks for passing on this story and the photos.
I have followed the news of the Lamar Valley wolves online for years now thanks to your posts and photos.
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I have been away from Yellowstone for four years now, maybe time to return. 🙂
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This just plain out makes me weep with anger and outrage as well as sadness. Any idiot knows, or should know, that you can almost always scare off a wild animal. Seems to me you wouldn’t hunt that close to Yellowstone if you had any sense of right and wrong, eh?
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Inbred in many minds is the notion that wolves are varmints who prey on livestock and therefore should be eradicated with extreme prejudice. Never known of anyone like that to change their mind. 😦
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Sad to hear…
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