EVANSTON—Yellowstone National Park’s last original wolf pack, Mollie’s Pack, emerged unscathed from a hunting season that opened last week and has already closed, Wyoming wildlife officials announced Monday.
Dan Smith, a Wyoming Game and Fish Department interim deputy director, provided the update, allaying concern that had run rampant online and in circles of wolf-watching devotees. Worries centered on the Mollie’s Pack, named after the late U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Director Mollie Beattie, who died of cancer during the historic 1995-96 reintroduction.
Today, Mollie’s Pack is the last remaining wolf pack still intact since reintroduction three decades ago. The famous pack had been making headlines for leaving the safety of its longtime territory in Yellowstone’s Pelican Valley and mostly spending late 2025 and the first half of this year in Wyoming’s wolf hunt area one, located northwest of Cody.
“Wolf hunt areas one and two did close on Saturday, after reaching the mortality limit of four wolves,” Smith told the Wyoming Game and Fish Commission. “None of the wolves taken were from wolf packs previously assigned to Yellowstone National Park.”
Recent movements had put Mollie’s Pack in a good position to survive Wyoming’s hunt. Ahead of hunting season, the National Park Service had reported to WyoFile that the pack, which consisted of five adults and five pups in July, was “mostly” back in Yellowstone, where hunting isn’t allowed.
Wildlife advocates had been pressuring Wyoming wildlife managers to close down the hunt area where Mollie’s Pack had been spending time. Monday’s news came as a relief.
“Mollie’s Pack survived the hunt,” said Wyoming Untrapped founder Lisa Robertson, who traveled to Evanston for the commission meeting. “For more than three decades, they have taught us about resilience, family, adaptation, and the enduring nature of the wild.”
Yellowstone officials declined an interview Monday, saying the wolf hunt is a state issue. Packs crossing park boundaries, mostly into Montana, have altered the park population at times. Wolves that spend most of their time in Yellowstone are poorly suited to survive hunting because they generally lack a fear of humans, and sometimes even badly habituate to crowds.
Where wolves are managed as trophy game, Wyoming’s hunt is already tightly managed relative to Idaho and Montana. This year hunting opportunities were reduced as a result of a distemper outbreak that has dropped the population to its lowest level in two decades. The state OK’d hunting regulations that allow the killing of up to 22 wolves — half of 2025’s limit — during a season that runs through the end of December.
Game and Fish set a quota of four animals that could be killed in hunt areas one and two. Hunters reached that limit over the weekend, Smith said.
Statewide, 10 of 22 wolves that can be killed in Wyoming’s wolf trophy game area have been dispatched by hunters during the first week of the season, according to the state’s mortality database. No other hunt areas have reached their mortality limit.
Wolf hunting is a notoriously difficult pursuit. Wyoming’s hunters devote about 500 days of effort per animal they kill. Especially early in the fall, the pups of the year are the most vulnerable.
Wyoming’s trophy game area covers just 15% of the state. Across the rest of Wyoming, wolf hunting regulations are scant and wolves are managed as predators. No licenses are required in the remaining 85% of the state, and killing takes place without limit and few restrictions on method year-round.
