For The Win
Famous Yellowstone wolf in peril as Wyoming hunting season looms
Updated Sept. 11, 2026, 6:51 p.m. ET
*UPDATE: Yellowstone Wolf Project Leader Dan Stahler told WyoFile late Tuesday (Sept. 11) that the Mollie’s Pack has “mostly been back in the park, and that includes the pups.” If that holds true, these wolves will be off-limits to hunters.
When wolf hunting begins Sept. 15 in Wyoming, at least two hunters will be targeting a famous wolf whose pack has a storied history inside Yellowstone National Park, dating to 1995.
The 12-year-old matriarch of the Mollie’s Pack is cataloged as Wolf 1090F. The pack relocated east of Yellowstone in late spring, inside the Shoshone National Forest and beyond the protection of park boundaries.
The pack denned within Wolf Hunt Area 1. In Wolf Hunt Area 1 and 2, the combined quota is four wolves.
As we reported last month, a hunter from Texas declared via social media that he’d be in Wyoming for opening day and that “the matriarch 1090F is going down.”
More recently, a hunter from Big Piney, Wyo., was quoted by the Cowboy State Daily as saying, “If I see her, I’ll harvest her.”
Advocacy groups have tried to persuade Wyoming to cancel hunting in Wolf Hunt Area 1, so far to no avail. But the advocacy will continue even after the start of the season.
The Mollie’s Pack, originally named the Crystal Creek Pack, was renamed in 2000 in honor of Mollie Beattie, who as director of the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service oversaw the reintroduction of wolves into Yellowstone in 1995.
Beattie died of brain cancer, at age 49, in 1996.
Exposing the Big Game 