'Queen of the Wolves' Dies in Yellowstone After Fight

The collar on 907F, one of the best-known gray wolves in Yellowstone National Park, signaled "mortality" last week—indicating the matriarch of the Junction Butte pack had died of injuries suffered in a fight at age 11. Called the "queen of the wolves," the one-eyed alpha female lived more than twice the typical lifespan of a wolf in the park, Smithsonian Magazine reports. She roamed Yellowstone's northern range in Wyoming with her pack and had her 10th litter in May. Her death came after a fight with the Rescue Creek pack, an offshoot of her own.

The rival pack crossed the Yellowstone River on Dec. 22 and attacked 907F and her pups as they were eating a bison carcass, per the Cowboy State Daily. Her collar indicated she was still alive for two days after that, but the signal changed on the third day, a wildlife tech said. Taylor Rabe collected her remains, and a necropsy will be conducted. "It's sad," Rabe said, "but … we always like to see a wolf die naturally, rather than at the hands of a human." Most wolves, even in the protected space, live four or five years. Making it to 11 would have been a challenge, Sheena Goodyear wrote this summer for CBC Radio. It shows 907F was "a shrewd survivor, a wise elder, a prolific mother—and an absolute boss," Goodyear said. (More gray wolf stories.)