Biologist Ken Mills sensed a shrewdness and smarts in Wolf 840M, a gray male canine that lived longer than any of the other 1,500-plus Wyoming wolves that have been ID’d and tracked since the species was reintroduced to the state three decades ago. 

First captured and collared as a 1-year-old living west of Cody in the Ishawooa Pack in April 2012, Wolf 840M had a way of escaping detection and threats for the dozen-plus years that followed. 

“Super savvy wolf,” Mills said, summing up an animal that lived 13 years and a few months.

That’s longer than any research wolves from Yellowstone National Park or Minnesota have survived. Only one wild wolf on record — Idaho’s B7, the last animal introduced into the U.S. from Canada in 1995 — lived longer, making it to at least 13.75. 

Just two months after being caught in a trap on the east end of the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, Wolf 840M, like many young adults, boogied west toward the Tetons. His travels terminated along the mighty mountain range’s western slope, in a sliver of wolf habitat overlooking Teton Valley, Idaho. 

There, wolves share the landscape with traps: Wolf trapping is permitted on the west side of the Wyoming-Idaho state line, an invisible boundary that splits the territory used by Wolf 840M’s Chagrin River Pack. (Appreciative U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service biologists let a local resident who reported the west slope Teton wolves name the pack. The person chose to name the pack after a Cleveland, Ohio river.)

“When he was collared, he was caught in a trap,” Mills said. “So he knew what traps were.” 

That learned experience and recognition of a life-threatening device — traps killed some of Wolf 840M’s packmates — might have extended his life, Mills said.

Mills learned from experience that Wolf 840M was equally adept at avoiding remote game cameras. 

“I’ve been running cameras up there since 2013, and I didn’t get photos of him for a decade, until 2022,” the longtime Wyoming Game and Fish Department biologist said. “I’d have parts of the pack coming through and he would not be there.”

The camera-trap sighting three years ago was a shocker. 

Wolf 840M’s first tracking collar died in 2017, five years after he was collared up the South Fork of the Shoshone as a yearling. So by 2022, he would have been 11, already well beyond the typical wolf’s lifespan.

The next winter in 2023, Mills’ contracted capture crew was flying and collaring wolves west of the Tetons when they came upon an animal moving unusually slowly. 

“When they were chasing him, he just kind of ambled on downhill,” Mills recalled. “When I got the [dead] collar back, I was like, ‘Oh my goodness, I can’t believe he’s still alive.’” 

By this point, Wolf 840M was at least 12. Remote camera footage from around this time — his avoidance skills had evidently waned — showed that he moved around with an old dog’s gait. It wasn’t even a lope. 

“Very arthritic,” Mills said. 

It’s unclear if Wolf 840M fed himself on the deer and elk herd that dwells on the Tetons’ west slope in his twilight years, or if he relied on packmates. But Mills’ best guess is that his mate, Wolf 1309F, did the heavy lifting, providing for the pack. 

“Based on the capture crew’s observations from when they caught him, and the camera footage I have, I’m not sure he would have been able to be fast enough [to catch prey],” Mills said. 

The old wolf did still have some spunk, however. He bred 1309F in 2022 and 2023, siring litters at 11 and 12 years old. 

Best biologists can tell, Wolf 840M succumbed to old age. Wyoming Game and Fish’s contracted pilot picked up a mortality signal flying last July. Mills went to investigate the site and quickly found the carcass.

“The pilot was 9.5 yards off,” Mills said of the impressively accurate coordinates he trekked toward marking the remains. “She’s nuts.” 

By the time Mills got to him that summer, keeled over right next to a small spring, Wolf 840M’s remains were pretty well melted back into the ground in the west slope Teton territory, where he spent almost his entire life. 

That’s a pretty remarkable landscape for a wolf to exist at all, let alone to survive until 13 years and change. 

“They’re on the edge of a human-dominated landscape,” Mills said.

Wolf 1309F — Wolf 840M’s former mate — even sometimes crosses Teton Valley, Idaho, passing by towns like Victor and navigating subdivisions, a highway and the Teton River to access hunting grounds in the Big Hole Mountains. 

Mills repeated his earlier observation.

 “Super savvy wolves,” he said. “Most people don’t know they’re there.”

SCOTT DETROW, HOST:

It’s almost summer, and if recent years are a guideline, that means heightened threats of wildfires. Billowing smoke from wildfires can cause dangerous air quality levels. Air filters in homes can help manage smoke, but what if you don’t have one? NPR’s Alejandra Borunda set out to see if it is possible to make your own air filters.

ALEJANDRA BORUNDA, BYLINE: The short answer is yes. You can build a DIY air filter in less than 30 minutes with stuff that you probably already have in your house.

ELLIOTT GALL: My name is Elliott Gall, and I am an associate professor in the department of mechanical and materials engineering at Portland State University.

BORUNDA: He’s the designer of this air filter called The Cocoon. Graduate student Brett Stinson explains.

BRETT STINSON: It’s pretty simple. It’s just a fabric filter. This is cotton batting and a box fan.

BORUNDA: Basically, just a tube of fabric attached to a box fan. Gall says it’s an old technology called a baghouse filter.

GALL: And it essentially is a piece of fabric that you force air through that filters out particulate matter.

BORUNDA: To me, it looks like a blobby, puffy, 8-foot-long sausage. But it works almost as well as air filters you can buy. Here in the lab up in Portland, we load up a sealed bedroom-sized area with smoke and start The Cocoon running. Within about 10 or 15 minutes, the air is pretty much clear. And my partner and I set out to build a Cocoon for ourselves.

This is Ali (ph) and Alex’s (ph) attempt to make a box fan filter.

Gall sent me a PDF with instructions. First, we track down a standard box fan, like the ones they sell in just about every hardware store. Then you need a big piece of fabric that’s 72″ wide.

Here’s the measuring tape.

That’s important because that size will fit neatly on the fan.

(SOUNDBITE OF MEASURING TAPE PULLING AND RETRACTING)

BORUNDA: Gall used cotton batting like the stuff inside of quilts.

But we don’t have that, obviously. I’m not a quilter. What we do have – and they say is OK – is sheets. Cotton or linen work best, they say.

We found an old, full-sized flat sheet in the back of a cabinet. That was perfect. Bigger ones could work, too, but you’d have to cut them down. So then we took the sheet, and we folded it in half lengthwise, like a giant hot dog bun. And then I attached the two long sides together very carefully with duct tape.

(SOUNDBITE OF DUCT TAPE PULLING)

BORUNDA: You end up with this big, long tube. And then you take some rubber bands or hair ties or whatever and twist them around one end of the tube – like you’re putting it in a little ponytail.

(SOUNDBITE OF RUBBER BAND SNAPPING)

ALEX: That works.

BORUNDA: And now we’re on to the last step. We slip the open end of the fabric tube around the edge of the box fan and duct tape it in place.

(SOUNDBITE OF DUCT TAPE PULLING)

BORUNDA: But make sure you don’t make this mistake.

I covered up the controls. So that’s a little bit silly. That was my mistake. Don’t do that.

Then we turn it on.

(SOUNDBITE OF FAN WHIRRING)

BORUNDA: Ooh. And we have inflated a giant blue tube.

It poofs up and looks exactly like one of those slinky tubes little kids crawl through. Gall says it works best if you can run it in rooms that aren’t too big, like overnight in a bedroom, for example. For NPR News, I’m Alejandra Borunda. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.

Wyoming filmmaker and actor Sean Patrick Higgins recently welcomed the world to his new basecamp in Missoula, Montana. 

The University of Wyoming graduate and Sheridan native hosted a ribbon cutting May 16, unveiling The Studios @ Story House Montana — a 47-acre film production facility coming to life on the campus of the former Roseburg Forest Products plant and lumber mill. 

In search of tax incentives unavailable in Wyoming, Higgins moved his film production operations to Montana.

“There’s no incentives in Wyoming right now,” Higgins said during a recent phone interview from California, where he was meeting with investors for three film projects planned for production this fall. “There’s a better runway in other places.”

The site, formerly owned by what Story House described as “a company in a nonrenewable, pollutive industry,” has been reimagined as a clean-energy media manufacturing hub.

“Missoula has given us the opportunity to show what the next era of entertainment infrastructure can look like — green, local and values-driven,” Higgins said.

Those values include a commitment to training a local workforce and creating opportunities for Montanans transitioning out of jobs in the timber and other extractive industries, according to company materials. 

The facility features five premium sound stages totaling 181,100 square feet, 33,800 square feet of production offices, and 61,075 square feet of workshops for set design, props, and storage.

The site will include an Americana backlot and a unique rail line running through part of the building where Higgins envisions rail cars as part of the standing set.

“Something that very few, if no other sound stages can offer in the U.S.,” said Higgins.

Green Energy 

Higgins’ vision is to become “the first operational, green sustainable film studio” by integrating solar and other renewable energy sources.

Leading the green development efforts is Roger Gaudette, the studio’s director of land management, who previously managed Ford’s Dearborn facilities in Michigan and created what was once the world’s largest green roof — a 16-acre facility with stormwater recapture and innovative water recycling systems.

“Roger’s leading our development, and he’s weaving in a lot of these certified principles and green energy technologies to look at a more sustainable path,” Higgins said, adding the studio is exploring partnership opportunities with a large green energy project currently in development in Missoula.

St. George

Story House Montana will locally produce its first major film, “St. George,” this fall. 

The drama is written and directed by Andrew Pastides (known for work on “Blue Bloods” and “Law & Order”) and executive produced by “Friday Night Lights” alum Matt Lauria. Its production is partially supported by the state’s Big Sky Film Grant.

The film tells the story of two brothers — one brother has Down syndrome, and the other serves as caretaker and mentor.

“It deals with two brothers who are navigating grief through very different life experiences,” Higgins explained. 

Most of “St. George” will be shot on location in and around Missoula, and the production will have offices on the Story House Montana campus. 

The site aspires to accommodate lighting companies, camera providers, and other film service vendors as anchor tenants.

“We’re creating a film village, essentially,” Higgins explained. “Just like if you were to walk out onto Warner Brothers backlot, you’d have your little streetscapes where you look like you’re in Europe.

“You can walk over to a different area and you’d be in, you know, a block of Manhattan.”

The facility offers unique features, including covered parking for star trailers, allowing talent to move from trailer to sound stage without going outside during harsh weather. 

“Walk out, walk down the hallway, walk on to their stage in their set, shoot their project, and then come back from their scene and pop back into their trailer, all without ever going outside,” Higgins said.

“Someone can come in there and sign a lease with us, and they could be in there next week, working and shooting,” Higgins noted.

Local Jobs

One key goal of Story House Montana, said Higgins, is to generate enough production work in Missoula to support more than 400 local jobs. 

“Too often, Montana’s artists and filmmakers feel like they have to leave home to make it,” said James Brown III, Higgins’ partner in Story House Montana. “We’re building a place where they can launch careers, tell stories, and create lives, right here.”

Higgins echoed this sentiment: “We’re not just building studios. We’re creating an ecosystem.”

David Madison can be reached at david@cowboystatedaily.com.