Montana's Diane Boyd: The Jane Goodall of wolves
(AP) — In 1979, Diane Boyd left her native Minnesota and headed west to begin tracking the first radio-collared gray wolf from Canada to recolonize the Western U.S., where humans had effectively eliminated the species by the 1930s through hunting, poisoning and habitat loss.
Boyd, a 24-year-old wildlife biology graduate student at University of Montana, was fueled by optimistic idealism and boundless energy.
Though wolves had been extirpated statewide, reports of sightings and shootings started trickling in during the 1960s and '70s, leading University of Montana professor Bob Ream to launch the Wolf Ecology Project in 1973, the same year that Northern Rocky Mountain gray wolves were listed under the Endangered Species Act.
From a formal scientific standpoint, the story of gray wolf recovery in the Western U.S. starts with Kishinena, and nobody is better suited to tell it than Boyd, who would study and live among wolves, beginning with Kishinena and her descendant "Magic Pack," for the better part of two decades, mostly without running water or power, and at times without funding.
[...] nearly four decades after she first arrived in Montana and following years of non-wolf work, Boyd has orbited back to her professional origins with her new role as wolf management and carnivore specialist for Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks' Region 1.
There were also wolves living on Michigan's remote Isle Royale and periodic sightings in Wisconsin, but Minnesota was the true final American frontier for the species.
Boyd enrolled in the University of Minnesota's wildlife management program and, as a "starry-eyed" 18-year-old freshman, immediately began pestering L. David Mech to give her field work.
After graduating college, Boyd worked in Alaska and then accepted a trapping job with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service back in her home state.
After wrapping up her Minnesota USFWS job, Boyd enrolled in University of Montana's wildlife biology graduate school and showed up in Missoula in September 1979 with everything she owned stuffed into her car.
Through Ream's Wolf Ecology Project, funded by multiple federal and state entities, Boyd and Mike Fairchild, another biologist, headed into the Flathead in search of the lost lobos.
Loggers would take photos of them and share information about sightings with Boyd.
Boyd melted snow or retrieved river water, boiling it on a wood stove, a way of life she would continue at a different cabin that she built later up the North Fork and still calls home.
Rather than admit defeat, Boyd stayed in the North Fork, working at the Cyclone Lookout from 1983-1985 and doing other odd jobs to make ends meet while she continued studying the pack largely on her own dime.
In a 1986 article in Natural History magazine, Clifford Martinka, the former longtime supervisory biologist at Glacier National Park, summed up the significance of gray wolves' return: "In reviewing the history of the park, I think this is the biggest thing that has happened here since the creation of the park itself."
[...] wolves had already made their way there.
[...] Boyd believes gray wolf recovery has been a towering achievement in American conservation.
[...] came a long period away from wolf work, besides another one-year stint under Bangs, although she remained an affiliate faculty member at UM and continued wolf research on her own.
An avid bird hunter, she also served from 2010-2013 as an FWP upland game biologist based out of Conrad.
[...] gig, she retired to her North Fork cabin, which is plumbed with propane but still has no running water or electricity, and committed to an art career, painting in solitude.
When FWP's Region 1 wolf management specialist position opened up, following Kent Laudon's departure, she saw her opportunity to answer it.
There may be nothing special scientifically about a Washington wolf venturing 700 miles to central-Montana's Judith Gap or another trekking 540 miles in seven months through all sorts of terrain, because wolves routinely make epic voyages.