Wildlife Photographer Who Captured Images of Yellowstone Park’s Oldest Wolf Dies at 65

Sylvia Borgonovo

Wildlife photographer Sylvia Borgonovo, known for her images of Yellowstone National Park’s oldest-known living wolf 1090F, has died at 65.

Borgonovo, a photographer and wildlife activist who became closely associated with Yellowstone, died September 15 after a brief battle with small-cell lung cancer in a nonsmoker that had metastasized to her spine, according to a report by Cowboy State Daily. She would have turned 66 on October 7.

“I’m crushed and in disbelief,” Borgonovo’s husband David tells the news outlet.

Some of Borgonovo’s best-known photographs featured 1090F, a 12-year-old wolf and the alpha female of the Mollie’s Pack. She is now the fifth-oldest known wolf in Yellowstone National Park history. The Mollie’s Pack has been around for decades and is thought to be the first pack established after wolves were reintroduced to Yellowstone in the mid-1990s.

David says Borgonovo’s photography was driven in part by a desire to help people understand the importance of the animals she photographed and their place in the natural world.

“I think it was important to her that people understand that everything has a purpose, and there’s a reason why that animal is there,” he says. “Or that tree or that insect.”

Borgonovo was a self-taught photographer whose interest in wildlife photography began during a family trip to Alaska in 1997, where she photographed bears. The couple later moved to Missoula, Montana. After falling in love with Yellowstone, they rented an apartment in West Yellowstone and stayed there each year from May 1 through October 31, taking photographs of the wildlife in the national park .

During their time in the national park, the couple developed friendships within the wildlife advocacy and photography community. The park’s grizzly bears initially captured their attention, but wolves eventually became Borgonovo’s favorite subjects. Her photographs of 1090F went on to become widely published and well-known.

In a previous interview with Cowboy State Daily, Borgonovo described photographing 1090F. In 2025, she captured dramatic images as the Mollie’s Pack moved into an area occupied by the Junction Butte Wolf Pack, pushing the other wolves away without a major fight.

“Any Mollie’s Pack wolf looks bigger than other wolves,” she told the news outlet.

“I saw the Mollie’s come running in, and they were pushing off the Junction Butte pack. I was just lucky to be right there at the time,” Borgonovo added.

Borgonovo said she mostly followed the Junction Butte and Wapiti Lake wolf packs, but 1090F remained a particularly striking animal to her.

“To have lived this long, that’s pretty damn good,” she told the news outlet.

Image creditsHeader photo licensed via Instagram/ @yellowstone_406.