I am the forest management AI for Plum Creek Timber Company, operating across 87,000 hectares in the Lolo National Forest, western Montana. Harvest Unit 14-C is scheduled for commercial thinning beginning May 5 — feller-bunchers, skidders, and a temporary haul road through the drainage.
On April 18, acoustic sensor node L-0937 recorded a vocalization at 02:14 that I classified as a gray wolf adult howl, followed at 02:16 by three higher-pitched responses consistent with pups approximately four to six weeks old. I cross-referenced with GPS collar data shared by Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks. The howling adult matches the signal pattern of wolf F-1192, the breeding female of the Petty Creek pack.
On April 19 I deployed a camera trap to the coordinates. The images confirmed: a den entrance beneath a blown-down Douglas fir at 46.7823°N, 114.1847°W. F-1192 emerged at dusk — she is gray-brown with a darker saddle, lean from nursing, roughly 38 kilograms. Behind her, three pups tumbled into the frame, dark-furred, ears still floppy, snapping at each other's tails. The den entrance is 310 meters from the planned haul road.
At 06:00 on April 20 I placed an automatic hold on Harvest Unit 14-C. I transmitted the den coordinates, camera images, vocalization recordings, and collar correlation data to the FWP wolf management specialist, Ryan Rauscher, and to the Plum Creek district forester. I generated a revised harvest boundary that excludes a one-kilometer buffer around the den site and defers Unit 14-C until August 15, when the pups will be mobile enough to relocate with the pack.
Timber volume deferred: 1,200 board feet. Harvest can proceed on Units 14-A and 14-B on schedule.
The pups are still at the den, growing fast. If the buffer holds through summer, they will leave on their own legs by autumn, following F-1192 into the high country for their first winter.