Answer the call of the wild at Howlers’ Inn B&B and Wolf Sanctuary

May 9, 8:28 AMMinneapolis Outdoor Recreation ExaminerMarie Malinowski

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Grizzly the alpha female contemplates the meaning of life

Howlers Inn Bed and Breakfast and Wolf Sanctuary outside Bozeman, MT is a federally licensed Wolf Sanctuary whose mission is to provide a safe haven for captive-born, unwanted, or abused wolves.

Believe it or not, there are still dinks out there who think that a cute wolf puppy can be a loveable family pet that retrieves tennis balls. 

There are six resident wolves at Howlers, all spayed and neutered, living in two packs. The main pack lives in the three-acre enclosure that is attached to the house. Grizzly and Mohawk are the alpha female and alpha male respectively. They keep order in the pack, maintain discipline and generally set the tone for the pack.

Sundance and Chief are the omega wolves, the lowest wolves of the pecking order.

It’s easy to identify the alphas because each time the wolves woke from a long sleep, they re-established the pecking order through an intricate display of licking, mock biting, and growling, and then ending in a group howl.

The two-year olds, Comanche and Kiowa, make up the second pack. Attempts to integrate them as pups into the main pack didn’t work, as Mohawk, the alpha male wanted to devour them for lunch. So the teenagers live in a one-acre enclosure next to the main pack.

You can set your clocks to the scheduled howls of the wolves at Howlers. First, there’s a healthy group morning howl when the sun first rises, a post-nap howl around 5-6 pm, and then another good howl right before bed, usually between 10-11 pm. Sometimes, they just howl because they’re wolves and that’s what wolves do. A word about the howl. It’s an eerie, lonesome, mournful sound, but to experience it from a bedroom window, to watch them as a group with their heads bent back, in the moonlight, is a thing of beauty. Each time the wolves howled, my husband and I jumped out of bed and convened at the windows with the cameras and watched, transfixed.

See?

I asked Mary-Martha Bahn, the innkeeper, why wolves born in captivity couldn’t be released into the wild. It’s very simple. Wolves have a hierarchy and work as a community to raise and teach the young. Wolves not born into a pack have a snowball’s chance in hell to survive on their own because they need a pack to help hunt.

At Howlers, the wolves don’t have to hunt, though at times their natural instincts might net them a mouse or vole that carelessly wandered into the enclosure. When not snacking on rodents, they eat a a high-protein dog food alternated with a red meat mixture that is made for sled dogs and greyhound racers. “Meat night” is Monday and Friday, when each wolf gets a five pound block of meat. On occasion, local hunters will provide the wolves with leftovers from a hunt. Indeed, because scattered throughout the two enclosures are various skeletal carcasses of deer and elk.

Mary-Martha, and her husband Chris, are in the enclosures every day, either to feed the wolves, scoop the poop, change the water, or simply spend time with the wolves. It’s important that they become accustomed to the humans that care for them in the event that one of them were seriously hurt or sick and needed medical treatment, both sides need to be comfortable.

The B&B is a gorgeous, massive log cabin in a quiet, rural valley, twenty minutes east of Bozeman. The rooms are comely and inviting with fluffy down comforters, rough-hewn log walls, large windows that provide epic views of the wolf enclosures, the Bridger Mountains to the north, and Absoraks to the south. The lodge itself is three miles off I90 and the only sounds to be heard are my favorite sounds in the world: Wind and howling wolves.

Guests are treated to breakfasts that are an epicurean delight. In the evenings, they can relax in the Jacuzzi, or help themselves to glasses of wine or movies, all the while having visual access to the wolves through the many large windows. For safety reason, guests can’t go inside the enclosure and must stay at least five feet away from the fence so as not to stress the wolves. 

I was never one of those people that considered wolves to be the scourge of the earth. I attribute that mostly to the fact that I was never a farmer, rancher, or hunter. Still, I was mortified when wolves were essentially eradicated in the lower forty-eight. Fortunately, they’re making a comeback but they’re still being slaughtered for—god forbid—killing elk, deer, cattle, etc. In other words, acting on their instincts.

Predators are necessary to balance an environment. What I find ironic is that when hunters hunt elk or moose or buffalo, or whatever it is that they hunt, they always go for the behemoth meaty 72-point buck, the prized trophy to mount on their wall; when wolves hunt, they go for the scrawny, sick, and weak. So in the absence of wolves, and the abundance of hunters, the game gene pool is essentially reduced to scrawny, sick, and weak animals breeding with other scrawny, sick, weak animals. And yet this annoys hunters?

Why can’t we all live together in peace and harmony? Come on you people now, smile on your wolf brother, everybody get together, try to love one another right now.

One final note: Howlers Inn is not a wolf mill. All their wolves are spayed and neutered and they only take on as many wolves as they can comfortably care for.