One of the most fascinating things we learned was the complex world of the park’s main predator, the wolf. Yellowstone Park is no stranger to controversy and the handling of the wolves has been front and center for almost a century. Although wolves are fascinating to watch, they pose an enormous threat to livestock and animals many ranchers in the Yellowstone states of Wyoming, Montana and Idaho need for their livelihood. In the 1930’s the decision was made to kill off the Yellowstone wolf population altogether. This plummeted the park’s ecosystem into an imbalance that affected everything from plant life to the birds in the air.
Yellowstone never intervenes with the natural course of events that happen in this wild environment with the exception of things that happen as a result of the human world. We saw this first hand 20 minutes into our first day after Carl spotted a newborn elk curled up by the side of the road. The mother had given birth and the space between the ground and the road had eroded to the point that the mother could not get the baby across. Carl called the ranger and together they wrapped the newborn in a blanket carefully void of human scent to take it across the street closer to its mother. In contrast, last week a female bison died after giving birth. The calf stayed by her side trying to nurse the corpse for days before dying of starvation. It was amazing that a wolf had not found the vulnerable creature first, but it did not. Rangers knew what was happening, but correctly see themselves as observers of this amazing system of life. Bones and carcasses in various forms of decomposition can be found everywhere. Carl had done forensic work for the government where he helped determine cause of death. He taught us a lot about what to look for when you observe these occurrences in nature.
Bison, despite the fact that they are HUGE, are herbivores. They eat about 24 pounds of grass a day! The lack of protein in their diet makes their droppings, or Bison patties, light and void of odor. After explaining this to the kids, Connor and Carl proceed to prove this point by playing Frisbee in a field with one of these patties!
Here, the animals have the right-of-way and if this bison wants to hang out by the bathroom, we will let him! It’s amazing how accustomed to us these animals have become. However, despite their docile appearance, these are deemed the most dangerous animals in the park. We saw this first hand as we watched a wolf wander too close to a bison calf. These 2,000-pound animals can run 30 miles an hour. We were there just as the spring babies were being born across the whole animal kingdom. This makes the animals more aggressive than usual as newborns provide good food for those up the food chain.
Our guide Carl is a lifelong naturalist from British Columbia who had a wealth of experience he shared with us the 20 hours we had together. He has worked as a fire jumper, a scuba diving instructor and guide, he was with the Fish and Game Department working with bears, led safari’s in Africa for three years and, more recently, enjoyed time working on the wolf project. He has a close relationship with the large number of park rangers and volunteers who were in the park daily. These people called or radioed him when there was animal behavior to observe and we would load up and head to our destination. Once there, Carl would set up three powerful field scopes for the nine of us to share in addition to the high quality binoculars given to each of us in the beginning. We observed bison, bear, wolf packs, elk, prawn horn, ground squirrels, prairie dogs, badgers, marmut, moose, coyote, and many more animals as well as birds of all kinds. Amazing!
The best thing we did was to take the advice of a friend and hire a private guide to take us through the park. Carl Swoboda picked us up at 6:00 a.m. and we were off for ten hours observing the wildlife in Yellowstone Park with someone who knows it well. Carl gave us a list of animals to find and we spent the day on a true safari trying to locate and observe each animal. If you ever go to Yellowstone yourself, please do it this way too!
