![](http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2012/12/09/us/WOLF/WOLF-popup.jpg)
By NATE SCHWEBER
Published: December 8, 2012
Yellowstone National Park’s best-known wolf, beloved by many tourists
and valued by scientists who tracked its movements, was shot and killed
on Thursday outside the park’s boundaries, Wyoming wildlife officials
reported.
The wolf, known as 832F to researchers, was the alpha female of the
park’s highly visible Lamar Canyon pack and had become so well known
that some wildlife watchers referred to her as a “rock star.” The animal
had been a tourist favorite for most of the past six years.
The wolf was fitted with a $4,000 collar with GPS tracking technology, which is being returned, said Daniel Stahler,
a project director for Yellowstone’s wolf program. Based on data from
the wolf’s collar, researchers knew that her pack rarely ventured
outside the park, and then only for brief periods, Dr. Stahler said.
This year’s hunting season in the northern Rockies has been especially
controversial because of the high numbers of popular wolves and wolves
fitted with research collars that have been killed just outside
Yellowstone in Idaho, Montana and Wyoming.
Wolf hunts, sanctioned by recent federal and state rules applying to the
northern Rockies, have been fiercely debated in the region. The wolf
population has rebounded since they were reintroduced in the mid-1990s
to counter their extirpation a few years earlier.
Many ranchers and hunters say the wolf hunts are a reasonable way to
reduce attacks on livestock and protect big game populations.
This fall, the first wolf hunts in decades were authorized in Wyoming.
The wolf killed last week was the eighth collared by researchers that
was shot this year after leaving the park’s boundary.
The deaths have dismayed scientists who track wolves to study their
habits, population spread and threats to their survival. Still, some
found 832F’s death to be particularly disheartening.
“She is the most famous wolf in the world,” said Jimmy Jones, a wildlife
photographer who lives in Los Angeles and whose portrait of 832F
appears in the current issue of the magazine American Scientist.
Wildlife advocates say that the wolf populations are not large enough to
withstand state-sanctioned harvests and that the animals attract
tourist money. Yellowstone’s scenic Lamar Valley has been one of the
most reliable places to view wolves in the northern Rockies, and it
attracts scores of visitors every year.
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