Current numbers: 5
Pack status: Active. Designated and disbanded in 2014. Re-designated in 2023.
On March 9, 2014, it was confirmed that the Ruby Creek Pack had been formed by two female wolves that split off from the Smackout Pack in northeast Washington. During the following winter, one of the female wolves mated with a domestic dog. She was captured, spayed, and returned to the wild. That spring, she was struck and killed by a motor vehicle.
The remaining member of the Ruby Creek Pack became known as Ione. The Washington Department of Fish & Wildlife became concerned that Ione was becoming habituated to people. On February 11th, 2015, Ione was tranquilized and transported to Wolf Haven Sanctuary, where she currently resides. Lone shares an enclosure with male wolfdog Luca, and the two seemed very attached to one another until she died in 2022.
There has been speculation that the Ruby Creek Pack split up due to the loss of the breeding adult male in 2014 when he was killed by a cougar.
The Ruby Creek Pack was re-established in Pend Oreille and Stevens Counties when members of the Dirty Shirt Pack split off, produced a litter of pups, and occupied a territory adjacent to the Dirty Shirt Pack in 2023. This briefly included WA147M, a collared yearling male from the Dirty Shirt Pack. He dispersed to the Ruby pack territory over the summer and then dispersed again up to British Columbia.
The pack also took in dispersing wolves from the Smackout Pack, which dismantled after the breeding female was killed by a vehicle. At the end of 2023, the Ruby Creek Pack had five wolves and was confirmed as a breeding pair.
In 2024, five wolves were confirmed in the pack, and they were considered to have a successful breeding pair.
