Grizzlies and Black Bears and Wolves -- Oh My!

It had been at least four days, I realized one morning with a painful tug, since I’d even put a brush to my hair. The days blur together in one extraordinary orgy of wildlife viewing and it seems we are living on the Discovery channel planet. All of us "regulars" – an author, a teacher, an architect, a civil engineer -- plus daily visitors from around the world – are here for one reason, and this interest in viewing wildlife bonds us on a primal level. Despite the occasional Obama bumper sticker, there is no talk of politics or world travel or great restaurants and wine. We’re not even eating what could be viewed as meals.
Partly due to the weather, we’ve had not a single campfire at night, drinking wine and playing Uno as in California camping. Instead, everything is about the sharing of sightings and encounters with wildlife. Prime wildlife viewing times preclude normal mealtimes, so we find ourselves eating dinner at 3 or 4 and grabbing snacks during the rest of the day in the truck. Sometimes we try to get in a nap, since we never get more than six hours’ sleep at night.
Far from the tourist mobs at Old Faithful, everyone seems to gather at “Footbridge,” the unofficial name for a pulloff below the Druids’ den, to get in some evening spotting and recount the day’s experiences. Rain, hail, spectacular lightening crackles and ground-shaking thunderclaps -- nothing diminishes the size of the group.
It was over a week before we had the chance to talk with our campground neighbors from San Diego, who leave at first light and are already gone when our alarm goes off at 5 each morning. We’ve met couples from Paris, Madrid and Zurich on this great wildlife safari, all in campers traveling the American west that exists nowhere else in the world. They come to Yellowstone for bears and wolves.
The day it opened for the season, we rose before 4 a.m. ourselves to move from our previous campground and get a spot at Pebble Creek, which has only 30 spots and is in one of the best locations in Lamar Valley. We succeeded in getting a spot between the roaring river and a crystal clear creek, with a view of snow-capped peaks and a resident black bear who’s sighted frequently, often out in the meadow eating dandelions. The campground has pit toilets, no showers, not even water since the flooding river contaminated the well. Regulars return for decades and we know we are lucky to be here.
The weather here at nearly 7,000 feet elevation changes from blinding sun to the blackest of clouds and pelting rain within minutes. Nights are always cold, and we sleep under a thick pile of covers I call the panini press. Happily, there have been enough breaks to get out and do a little hiking.
We’ve seen our hoped-for wolves and glimpsed at least six new pups through the trees. We’ve sighted a number of grizzlies – one too close for comfort. Just as we began a hike yesterday, we heard a man yell from his car: “People – there’s a big bear heading your way!” Looking in all directions, we saw nothing but scrambled back toward the truck and saw a large grizzly galloping – and they run 30 miles an hour -- straight toward us across the road. In a few heart-stopping seconds we were inside the truck in time to see that the object of his attention hadn’t been us, but an elk rib cage from a previous kill, which he grabbed in enormous paws as if it were a toy, rolling onto his back and tossing it in the air. Next time we’re here we’ll invest in bear spray.
Each day brings a new series of sightings:
--Three low-to-the-ground badger pups, peering from atop their den with comical jailbird-striped faces;
--A yearling black bear, strolling at the edge of the road atop a rock wall at the brink of a breathtaking precipice, just as any teenager would do;
--An enormous grizzly emerging from the forest and setting its sights on a bison calf on the outskirts of the herd. The grizzly took off and a hundred bison were on the move, quickly coalescing into a galloping herd. The bear charged after the herd, moving to one side or the other as a calf straggled. Then, as if on cue, the herd did an about-face and stampeded after the grizzly, an astonishing chase that lasted until the bear tired and veered off toward the forest.
--Three separate dens of coyote pups, one with wrestling adolescents under the watchful eyes of both parents, the other two with five and six little pups, curled together and dozing in the sun.
--A black bear emerging from the forest to graze her way across a meadow, followed within minutes by a huge cinnamon male twice her size, large scar on his right shoulder. The uncommon cinnamon black bear followed at his distance, climbing over fallen trees clumsily with an odd gait that seemed to indicate hip injuries. “Maybe he has hip dysplasia,” ventured one onlooker, to be corrected by another with more bear knowledge than the rest of us: “He’s not injured; that’s the courting stance.” We later laughed about our faux pas with Ranger John. “I used to walk around like that a lot when I was 17,” he said.
--A bighorn sheep ram, appearing in the same spot each day and turning his head one direction and the other to show off his best angle before shutter-snapping onlookers like a body builder at Venice Beach;
--A sleek river otter and three kits, rolling over and over on a grassy log like circus tumblers until the youngsters fell off with a splash;
--A pronghorn antelope, probably the one we’d seen the night before with an unsteady newborn, stomp the ground with her forward hooves and chase away a wandering coyote.
Some sightings we’ve missed:
--Four wolves attacking a single calf and mother bison, who kept her youngster protected within her legs and the wolves at bay until the cavalry arrived in the form of the bison herd, which routed the wolves. Formidable foes, bison can kill wolves and have even been known to come to the aid of elk.
--Four blacktail deer, marching shoulder to shoulder, and driving a coyote pair away from their own den of pups
--A female moose, with grave injuries from a bear or wolf attack, lying for days under a tree, then appearing upright with a newborn calf, who nursed for several days while the weakened mother grazed. Days later, the mother was found dead in the creek and the calf attempted to follow rangers, who observed park hands-off policies and left it to its fate.
It’s difficult to remain dispassionate about some of the things we’ve seen, particularly now in the season of the young. I’m glad we haven’t witnessed any of the kills, although in some cases we’ve missed them by mere moments. Woven into the unspeakable beauty of the place is grim evidence of the fragility of life, as every animal is another’s meal. It’s a daily saga that’s been addicting, exhausting, sometimes horrifying and always riveting.
Critter pictures at: http://picasaweb.google.com/happytwo.mcwilliams/2YellowstoneBlog2009?authkey=Gv1sRgCNrnnqiCnIagJA&feat=directlink

Valley of the Wolves

“There’s 569 on the ridge below tree line near the kill.”
A murmur spread among the crowd as spotting scopes and binoculars turned in unison toward the hill in Yellowstone’s Lamar Valley. Bundled against the cold of dawn were the wolf watchers and their groupies – ourselves included. We were watching the alpha female of the famed Druid Peak pack, the largest and perhaps best known of Yellowstone wolf packs.
Members of the roughly 14-member pack, through tag-team and ambush efforts, had killed a bull elk the night before, dropping the large animal at the edge of the Lamar River below us. Hours later, all that remained were pink-tinged ribs and a large rack of antlers still bearing springtime velvet.
The den’s pack was located high up on the hill across the road and the adults had fed on the carcass and delivered food to an unknown number of new pups.
The human watchers included two park rangers, volunteers with the Wolf Project, longtime groupies and first-timers such as ourselves, thrilled to be part of it. The volunteers came from far and wide, many visiting the park several times a year for decades. They knew each other by name and the wolves by number. All had expensive spotting scopes – the $3,000 Swarovski was a favorite – and others had cameras with 600mm lenses. Some scribbled notes and Rick McIntyre, the chief wolf researcher, taped his field notes. This was serious business. We were equipped with Terry’s 40-year-old binoculars and my point-and-shoot Canon. Happily, people were generous in sharing their scopes.
“Did 480 participate in the hunt? Has anyone seen 302?” At seven years of age, alpha male 480 was advanced in age. Most wolves live only to five years, and in recent years as many as a third of the Yellowstone’s northeastern wolf population has been lost, the pups to canine distemper and Parvo virus, and the adults to a variety of causes, including hunters. Wyoming classifies wolves as predators to be shot on sight once they stray from the park boundaries.
At the lookout, we were spellbound, watching 569 cross the road to feed the pups and a black male yearling, as yet unnumbered, approach the kill, chasing away both a coyote and ravens who had settled in for a meal. He tugged mightily on the carcass for 15 minutes and came away with a chicken-sized hunk of meat which he carried some distance and then cached in the sagebrush. A gray female appeared and was identified as 645, having lost her radio collar. Wolves are tracked by plane and darted in the winter, when blood samples are drawn and adults collared.
Once plentiful here but exterminated by the 1920s, wolves were reintroduced to Yellowstone in 1995 amid tremendous controversy and opposition by local ranchers. Their fears of predation on livestock have been unfounded and the wolves have returned an ecological balance to the area. All the wildlife is spectacular, but everyone hopes for a glimpse of a wolf.
They’ve brought a great deal of tourist income to the area, but the same guy in town who sells you a wolf sweatshirt could have been the one who chased a wolf for 60 miles on a snowmobile last winter just to kill it. A longtime visitor recounted that some wolf haters have even scattered poisoned hot dogs around the park, killing more than one vacationer’s pet dog.
The animals were taken off the endangered species list last year in Montana, Idaho and Wyoming, but Wyoming’s “predator” classification and “kill on sight” law for wolves outside the park have outraged conservationists, causing some wolf watchers to boycott the state. Obama supporters have been dismayed that he has upheld the previous administration's position.
Meanwhile, the packs go about the business of survival. There are new mouths to feed this time of year, with pups yet unseen by human eyes up in the hidden den. Researchers say that wolves dote on pups and the entire pack – male and female, related or not – plays a role in feeding, guarding and playing with the pack’s youngest members. We watched a young black wolf trot back and forth along the tumultuous river seeking a safe crossing point. Finally, he plunged and we held our collective breath as he was swept downstream before reaching the other side, determined to deliver meat to the den high on the wooded hillside. Bonds within the pack are as strong as the fascination observers have for the animals.
We remained for nearly five hours in the bone-chilling cold, watching as 645 left the carcass and moved up the hill, stopping to sit and throw back her head.
“Shhhhhhh! The wolf’s howling.” Instantly, nearly 70 humans fell silent and we heard the eerie, melancholy song of the wolf. It was an extraordinary beginning to our stay in the Lamar Valley.
Pictures (copy and paste link)at:
http://picasaweb.google.com/happytwo.mcwilliams/1YellowstoneBlog2009?authkey=Gv1sRgCPTR8vvSwvzKxQE&feat=directlink

Rainy Days & Sundays

The weather gods just aren't favoring us. Cars heading south this morning were covered with snow and we've learned Yellowstone, our destination tomorrow, is closed to traffic. We've grabbed the brief bouts of sun when we could, but the clouds are dark and heavy and when it hasn't rained the past couple days it's hailed. The temperatures were in the 80s the week before we left.
Hiking's been out, but we've seen our share of bison, elk and antelope from the car, along with a couple distant moose. We've met lots of fellow nature lovers and this trip it seems all of the Europeans (who flock to this area) are, oddly, Dutch. We talked with one who'd shipped his camper over from Antwerp and would be exploring the US for a year. The only place he and his wife had been that disappointed was California. "We didn't like the people," he said, while we hoped to convince him otherwise.
For her part, our server at the lodge, where we snacked on truffle fries and Snake River Ale before being chased inside by a storm, said the Dutch tourists were the worst: "They only tip 3%!" she grumbled. Another Dutch couple rented a camper in Canada and would head up to Alaska in another month or so to "see the glaciers before they melt" due to global warming. "There's nothing like this in Europe," they said, sharing their binoculars with a young American couple. "All these animals..." It often seems to us that those from other countries have a greater appreciation for, and knowledge of, the great American outdoors than many citizens do.
Bear Facts
(If you're not a fan of Animal Planet or Discovery, you may want to tune out.)
Although grizzlies have remained elusive this trip, a friend emailed that they'd found a black bear on their kitchen counter in Tahoe, eating apples! We've learned a lot about the iconic grizzly. Three of its key food sources in this area are threatened. Cutthroat trout, which inhabit the shallow streams, are being eaten by introduced lake trout, which live in deep waters inaccessible to bears. The army cutworm moth which sips nectar and rests on high-altitude rocks provides bears with important fat in the fall, but it's a crop pest and is being decimated by pesticides in the plains states. And pinenuts (who knew?), another important food, are in ever-shortening supply thanks to the pine bark beetle killing pine trees.
This is why the Willow Flats elk calving area is closed to people -- as much to allow the bears undisturbed access to an important protein source as to protect humans. It's gruesome for the elks, but they greatly outnumber grizzlies at an estimated population of 8,000 to the grizzlies' 300, and the elk are fed by humans in the winter, while bears eat nothing for months.
Cubs are born only if the sow has had enough food prior to hibernation, and they're only 10 ounces at birth. Emerging from the den in May, they'll remain with their mother all summer long, gaining about 50 pounds and returning to the den with her in November. They continue to nurse through a second winter, as well as a third, when they've reached 80 pounds. Pity the poor mother grizzly, who feeds the cubs for two and a half years, a year longer than the common black bear. With low reproduction rates, poaching by humans and threatened food sources, the grizzly's future is uncertain.
With luck, we'll see this charismatic critter and wolves, if we can get into Yellowstone.
For an assortment of random photos, either copy and paste or click on:
http://picasaweb.google.com/happytwo.mcwilliams/2Teton?authkey=Gv1sRgCN-HwdOsq-23IQ&feat=directlink

Tetons Redux

The first leg of the trip took us through Nevada, past Winnemuca and the billboard for the Pussycat Ranch (Jacuzzi. Massage. Truckers Welcome.) A sometimes-heavy rain lowered the snow level on the mountains and left the air heavy with the sweet scent of sage -- even in the Elko Walmart parking lot, where we spent the first night, dining on a caprese salad garnished with leaves from the traveling basil plant that accompanies us. A new route through Salt Lake City allowed us to avoid the steep mountain pass that taxed Happy's brakes last fall.
Just over 1050 miles brought us to our destination the second evening, the Gros Ventre campground in Grand Teton park. Miraculously, we were able to grab the same mountain-view campsite we had last fall, this time with a nesting robin in the tree outside the “kitchen” window. The scenic rivers are nearly unrecognizable, swollen to three or four times their size with muddy snowmelt, their currents strong enough to topple the sturdiest bison. We saw no animals on the road to the campground.
The cheery camp host told us there was a great horned owl nesting nearby and we found the nest cavity in a tree at dusk, thanks to a group of photographers with their foot-long telephoto lenses trained on the site. Two large babies with wise old faces peered from the nest, while the parent owl preened in a nearby tree. We immediately fell into the conversation du jour in this neck of the woods: what have you seen and where?
A photographer and his wife from Wisconsin filled us in, beginning with the always tantalizing tip of the pyramid: grizzlies and black bear, mostly in Yellowstone. Like nearly everyone we meet, they travel here more than once a year, with the sole intent of “shooting” wildlife. No one ever seems to be a professional, despite lots of very expensive equipment. They do it for the thrill, spending the day going back and forth on the roads most likely to produce a prize, then sometimes waiting for hours to get the shot.
I love the easy camaraderie of this place: it’s all about seeing wildlife in a spectacular setting and sharing tips with everyone else on where they can find it. Sort of a communal love-in for critter people. My idea of heaven.
The next morning, with low clouds hiding the base of the mountains, we set off on Antelope Flats road and soon spotted our first herd of bison, molting adults shedding their tattered winter coats and tan calves bedding down in the sage. We were reassured that the multitudes of animals we saw in the fall we still around – somewhere.
After a visit to Jackson Lake Lodge, which graciously provides wifi and spectacular views from its lobby, we headed back to camp, stopping at the Oxbow, where Grizzly 399 reportedly still lives with her offspring. There were no bear jams this time. The river now resembled a lake, the beaver we watched swimming was gone and the air was thick with mosquitoes.
We returned to camp at dusk, spotting elk, deer and fleet-footed pronghorn antelope on the way. Our new neighbor was Don, a retiree from Colorado who visits the park several times a year. He was packing up the telephoto for his camera – at least two feet long, it came in camo print. He told us where to find kit foxes, more owls soon to fledge and talked of the wolves in Lamar Valley, our next destination. He occupied the cozy Chalet camper alone, saying his wife had given up camping after 27 years of his wildlife photography.
Spectacular lightening displays illuminated the inky sky. Springtime in the mountains is sheer drama, with snow in the mountains and flowers in the meadows, and weather that changes from scorching mountain sunshine to pelting rain and back in minutes.
Dawn and dusk are the prime times for animals, and the next morning we adopted the photographers’ schedule, setting the alarm for 5 to be out spotting at first light. We were rewarded with a slice of cantaloupe-colored sky and the hulking apparition of a solitary bull bison, grazing in a field of yellow mules’ ears. More bison followed, the calves already treating the road as their birthright.
We’re beginning to feel affection for these implacable and sturdy beasts, who always provide wonderful photo opps, although they tend to give you the stink eye from the middle of the road. Elk were out in force, crossing the road nervously, and skittish antelope were just a tan-white blur as they sped out of sight. No signs of bear, although we learned they are active in Willow Flats, where they troll for newborn elk hidden in the thicket. This feeding window is a narrow one and the opportunistic bears seize it, since soon the calves will be as fleet-footed as their parents. Signs warned human visitors to stay clear.
Our bear lust disappointment was tempered by the sighting of a single sandhill crane, strolling majestically through a flock of Canadian geese, who reached only half the height of the rust-colored giant.
We had homemade gazpacho, bison meatloaf and mashed potatoes for dinner, raising a glass of Aussie Shiraz to toast the beast who provided both a delicious meal and countless photo opps.
Photos are found at: http://picasaweb.google.com/happytwo.mcwilliams/1Tetonblog09?authkey=Gv1sRgCP6I9ZauofCOKw&feat=directlink