Friday, September 25, 2009

Return to Lamar Valley



A bull moose wandered past, within eight feet of Happy our last morning before we left for Yellowstone and bison were back on our side of Antelope Flats road, rolling in the dust, bellowing like lions and hogging the road. We love those guys – such attitude.
Five full hours driving time brought us to Pebble Creek campground. We saw a few deer (oddly enough, somewhat of a rare sighting here) and lots of bison enroute. The bison herds seem to be thriving. Driving through beautiful Hayden Valley, we had a great ridgetop view of what initially appeared to be wolves, but they proved to be the old coyote fakeout. Large, healthy-looking animals, though.
Once at Pebble Creek, we learned from camp host Ray that the Druid Peak wolf pack we observed so closely this spring, the most famous pack in Yellowstone, had left the valley for the summer and only recently returned.
Pulling into our site, we saw a familiar Montana 5th wheel with Utah plates that proved to be Pam and Dennis, the couple we spent so many dawn wolf watches with this spring. We learned from them that the Druids are infected with sarcoptic mange and may not make it through the winter. Rick McIntyre, chief wolf researcher, later offered a bit more hope, saying he’d seen wolves survive mange.
A late sunrise and 17 degree temperatures got us off to a late start the first morning. The wolf watching scene had moved from the convenience of spring’s roadside pulloff and now required a climp up a steep hill strewn with loose rocks. Terry got brief glimpse of black wolf, and we learned a gray had been present earlier. But sightings were few and very distant. Doug McLaughlin, a wolf researcher we’d met this spring, was generous as always with wolf information and the use of his spotting scope.
He told us Druid pups are down in number from 9-12 this spring to three and those three are thin and mangey. Survival through the winter is chancey, but the pack is resilient and has survived much in the past.
Alpha male 480 doesn’t look good, and was seen with a loose flap of skin on his right foot he may have gnawed off due to mange. It may have been him that was hanging around, largely out of view our first morning. Several observers heard him howling this past week, an eerie and very atypical howl that one longtime observer said is only made when a wolf is dying. At 7 ½ years, he’s getting old – the average lifespan for wolves in the park has been less than four years. If he’s not eating, as alpha he will neither ask for nor receive food from pack mates. He was not spotted again during our visit, and his mate has not been seen in over a week.
The unusual heat has kept wildlife sightings sparse, save for the ever-dependable bison. A few bears have been sighted at the higher altitudes, but they’ve eluded us. Even the mountain goats that inhabit Baronette Peak have sought cooler refuge. We have had good sightings of elk, bighorn sheep and pronghorn antelope, always a group consisting of a single male keeping a close eye on his harem during this rutting season. The elk still lounged on the lawns and meandered through the campground at Mammoth, but we missed seeing #10, a massive bull who poses for pictures until a crowd gathers, then charges autos. He’s sent over 50 cars to the repair shop this season.
Where did the mange that’s tormenting the wolves come from? It was actually introduced 75 years ago by the state of Montana to coyotes, which were infected in the hopes they would spread the mites to wolves and kill them (and themselves in the process.) There’s a drug that would cure mange instantly and researchers think it could be administered by lacing a carcass on which the wolves would feed. The dilemma is this: in some cases it appears certain wolves are developing an immunity to mange and if that could be passed on genetically, their offspring would greatly benefit. So – to treat would rob them of the opportunity to develop immunity. It's yet another of the many complexities in managing wildlife.
Ironically enough, we’ve seen more coyotes this visit and they appear in magnificent shape, full of vigor and with thick, heavy coats. We watched one hunt in a field as if it were a buffet line, pouncing on and devouring a rodent every 25 feet.
There are puffs of smoke on the peaks from lightening-sparked fires, and similar fires in Yellowstone are lowering visibility greatly on the main road.
We ran into Ranger John Kerr, who remembered us from the spring, and had a nice chat. Although he was too modest to mention it, we later learned that he and Darlene, our campground host and a first-year ranger, were the two park rangers selected for duty during the Obamas’ visit last month. John, a former Boston resident who’d worked in documentary filmmaking for PBS, now works seasonal bear-jam duty in Yellowstone. He was manning the barricades when the President emerged from his car, thanked John for working and shook his hand, making it a memorable 71st birthday for the genial ranger.
Pictures at: http://picasaweb.google.com/happytwo.mcwilliams/TetonsYellowstoneSept2009?authkey=Gv1sRgCJaXjKWZgenbLw&feat=directlink

1 comment:

Olivia Wilder said...

I love your posts- feel like I'm right there, and will be nearby next week! Travels with Happy- well named, because I can imagine how fun and freeing that would be! I would love to do something like that; who knows?