Hi! I'm Emily Graslie. I'm on my way to pick up a wolf that Liz said she was holding for us.
A wolf? Um, it's in the freezer.
Oh! Sorry. Oh, sorry.
Thanks.
This is James.
He's a volunteer.
Works in our prep lab with us.
We're gonna go pick up,
well, we have connections with a wolf specialist who does a lot of tracking
of these different wolf packs around Montana
and apparently, this large male grey wolf was hit by a car
up between here and Seeley somewhere, near the Blackfoot River.
So someone hit it with their car, they contacted GWNP
and then they got in contact with us, so we're gonna go pick it up right now.
So we're gonna tan the hide, we're gonna process the whole skeleton,
which we'll have to do in installments
because it's too big to fit in the bug box.
We have to skin it out, once it's thawed a little bit,
probably on Thursday and Friday this week
and then we're gonna have to dismember it,
and disembowel it, and then store the various parts in the herbarium freezer,
which is hilarious, because botanists don't really take kindly to...
to animal remains in their plant remains freezer.
Which way do I go in?
I don't know where I'm going.
It smells like you're at the dentist and...
I don't know. It's got that like metallic, bloody, but like a stale bloody thing.
- Mhmm, that iron in the blood that you can smell.
Wow, it's large. - Yeah, he's a really pretty wolf
He's gorgeous - and that's why I was hoping somebody
Really large. - could do something with it.
Oh my gosh, good shape, too. - Yeah.
It's gonna hit his foot.
He's just massive.
How much do you think he weighs?
Ninety pounds.
It's just a big dog. It's the biggest dog.
He has burrs in his fur.
He doesn't smell too bad.
Alright. - Wow. Yeah.
I just need to do a property transfer form for you guys
Sure. - And that'll have his ID number on there.
I'm really excited about this.
It's not every day that we get wolves,
it's especially not every day that we get an entire wolf.
We get to do some necropsy stuff.
I love me a good necropsy. - I'm very excited.
Finding out the cause of death.
That's pretty cool.
It's been a good day.
It's gorgeous out here.
I still can't get over the fact that I accidentally called LensCrafters
and was like: Yeah, I'm here for my wolf.
Yeah, I want you to get rear-ended and for a hundred pound frozen wolf
to fly out - Onto their windshield.
No, not onto their windshield, I don't want them to get hurt
I just kinda want it to, like, flop on the hood of their car.
It'd make a pretty big dent. But...
That'd be bad for the wolf, then it got hit by a car twice.