Wandering is definitely a strong legacy in the gene pool for one wolf pack.

A wolf shot by a federal agent on Oct. 6 in Wyoming's Bighorn Mountains east of Ten Sleep for killing sheep is the litter mate of a wolf found dead in northwestern Colorado this spring.

"It's an interesting pack," said Carolyn Sime, Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks wolf project leader. "There are several occasions where the pack's sent out notable dispersers."

Both wolves came from the Mill Creek pack on the eastern side of the Paradise Valley, south of Livingston. The wolves were part of a litter born in the spring of 2007. When captured in October of that year, they were radio-collared and given numbers. The male was designated SW266M, for the 266th male wolf tagged in southwest Montana. The female was SW341F.

341F became famous for her trek south across Yellowstone Naitonal Park, Wyoming, Idaho and Utah and then into northwestern Colorado's Eagle County, where she was found dead in March. The wolf's cause of death at 18 months is still under investigation by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

She was the second wolf known to have made it as far south as Colorado since the reintroduction of wolves to Yellowstone National Park in 1995. The first was killed along Interstate 70 in 2004 near Idaho Springs in north-central Colorado. Colorado's last native wolf was reportedly killed in 1943.

It's not known how extensive 341F's less well-known brother's wanderings were. His collar did not contain a GPS tracking device. But even a fairly straight trek to the

Bighorns would require a walk of a couple hundred miles across some of the most rugged country in south-central Montana and northwestern Wyoming, several rivers, not to mention trekking through the Bighorn Basin, a high-desert stretch of country intermixed with farms and ranches.

"It's nothing unusual in a biological sense," Sime said. "They were both of dispersal age. But it does affirm wolves are able to move around the landscape and do."

Sime said that from a genetic viewpoint, dispersal is key to the species. In addition to the biological drive to breed, the wolves also have a strong inclination not to interbreed, and so they seek out wolves from another pack.

"It really begins to challenge our concept of the size of the landscape that wolves exist in," Sime said. "It's amazing to me how big these home ranges are outside of Yellowstone National Park."

But leaving the more sheltered backcountry, national parks and wilderness areas is a risky proposition. Traveling wolves not only have to worry about vehicles when crossing highways, but also poaching and attacks by other wolf packs. And if the wolves develop a taste for livestock, as 266M did, they eventually become a target of federal Wildlife Services agents.

"If you look at survival rates, dispersing wolves have a lower rate of survival," Sime said. "It's a risky business to be the dispersing wolf."

Contact Brett French at french@billingsgazette.com or at 657-1387.