Field Notes from the Greater Yellowstone Coalition's
Bears and Wolves Outing
Yellowstone National Park
June 3-6, 1996
We left at 4:30 am, drove past all the elk and buffalo in the upper Lamar Valley, and proceeded to just east of Junction butte, where the Yellowstone and Lamar rivers converge. We pulled into a turn-off and set up scopes. As the day dawned, there were a few herds of elk scattered here and there.
Just as we began to wonder if we had picked the right spot. Steve noticed a herd of jittery elk up on the far side of the river. Then he called out "we have a wolf!" Three wolves ( a gray adult and two black offspring) appeared over the crest of a hill and worked their way down the slope, testing the elk. They followed the string of elk and disappeared behind a ridge.
We quickly packed up our gear and moved to the next turnout just west of Junction Butte. After awhile, the three wolves appeared, intently working down the slipe towards the river after the elk. They disappeared behind a rocky knoll. We never saw them come out. They must have made a kill.
A black bear made its way up the hill towards them, trailed closely all the way be a coyote (was it escorting the bear away from a nearby den?). Then, two coyotes appeared lower down, by the river, and downed an elk calf which was separated from the herd. Some cows and a bull returned to the calf, and chased the coyotes away. To our amazement, the calf stood up and walked slowly up the hill, somewhat dazed. The coyotes positioned themselves in the rocks above, waiting for their moment. To our dismay, the adult elk turned away, leaving the calf alone. Then the coyotes made their move and downed the helpless calf.
There was a bighorn ewe close behind us, sitting near the top of Junction Butte. At the base of the Butte, two black bears were frolicking in the trees. 3 bighorn rams were spotted on a cliff on the far side of the river. Then, Steve noticed some elk acting spooked, high on the far slopes, and spotted a Grizzly lumbering behind them.
Later, another, smaller, lighter adult grizzly with a distinct saddle appeared to the right along the same ridge. Not far behind was a very large, dark grizzly, which joined up with the light one. Steve thought they were a mating pair.
Throughout our whole time at this spot, which may have lasted two hours, there was a little newborn elk calf sitting quietly in some sagebrush, not 100 yards from us. Their defense mechanism against predators is to sit odorless and motionless while the cows go off to graze, and wait patiently for their mothers to return.
As the sun shone brightly and the day warmed, we packed up and drove east. We hiked up to the site of the Crystal Creek Wolf Pen. On the way, we saw Sandhill Cranes, an immature Bald Eagle eating its catch up in a dead tree, with a raven nearby, many ground squirrels, Redtails, and scattered bison.
Once we arrived at the wolf pen, Betsy told us the history of the wolf reintroduction process, and relayed some interesting stories about her personal experiences with the captivity phase and release back into the wild of this pack.
We ate lunch, and saw a couple of elk cows on the ridge above; there was a little calf standing alone. Not far away, its mother was beckoning the calf to follow, but it took only a few tentative steps. While we watched a big brown bear charged across the ridge and knocked down the calf. It dragged up the hill, while the mother followed, distraught. The bear settled under a cliff in the shade of a Douglas fir, and began to feed. Then he waddled away.
Steve was sure it was not a grizzly. We walked up to the cliff and found the dead calf, intact except for a large chunk taken out of its belly. It looked so helpless. Just then, Steve yelled out - the bear was peering down at us over the rock ledge, not 50 feet away. We backed off and took pictures. It was a brown-phase black bear. I was glad Steve knows his bears.
We climbed up to a rocky knoll with a great view into the main Lamar Valley. More elk and bison. Hiked back down. It started to rain, for the only time in our four days.
Out again at 4:30am. Stopped in at the Slough Creek access road. Spotted a grizzly climbing up far hillside. Not much else. Moved on to Junction Butte again. Saw a grizzly high on the cliff far side of Lamar River. 3 Bighorn rams, probably the same ones we saw yesterday. Moved on to the same pullout west of Junction Butte, where we had such a spectacular show yesterday. Very little action, not even elk. Saw a black bear and two coyotes across the valley.
This morning made us realize how unpredictable seeing these animal can be, and just how lucky we were to have seen such a spectacle the day before. We packed up and drove west across the Yellowstone River bridge to turn around. A big black bear was sitting under a tree, very close across a little draw, devouring another unlucky elk calf. Many onlookers pulled over to watch.
We drove back up the Lamar to the bottom of the big valley. This paid off big. We spotted 5 different grizzlies far across the valley, high on top of the ridge line. For about twenty minutes, we watched two 2-year-old cubs wresting and frolicking back and forth along snow cornices, while mom plodded along. Another big adult followed at some distance, probably a male checking out the female for a possible date. Another adult was lower down, to the right; we watched him slide down a snow bank on his belly, feet first; then he slowed to a stop, turned around, and went the rest of the way face-first, leaving a deep trough behind him. He was having fun.
Beautiful sunny day. Lots of elk and bison in the valley bottom. We pulled into the Lamar ranger station to prepare for our midday hike. Hundreds of bank swallows, flitting around puddles in driveway, collecting mud for their brand new nests under the eaves.
We headed off for a hike at the confluence of the Lamar and Soda Butte Creek. Crossed rover on footbridge, across flats on other side. UP to a former coyote den which was dug out and pups killed by the Crystal Creek wolf pack last year. Then, up to an old black bear den on a steep north-facing slope. A male Blue Grouse was displaying, let us get within 10 feet. Saw a Redtailed Hawk dive-bomb a Golden Eagle which was heading out to hunt on the flats - the Redtail was probably protecting a nearby nest.
We climbed up onto a grassy knoll, spooking a small elk herd up the hill. Ate lunch, then split up into two groups. Betsy took one group along the valley floor, and Steve led our group straight up the steep grassy slope to the top of a cliff, then up another slope, about 1700 vertical feet altogether. Beautiful views of the entire Lamar Valley. We could see West to Mirror Plateau and Electric Peak, and East to mountains around Cooke City. In the mountains to the south, up the Lamar valley, there was deep snow above 8000 feet or so.
After a nice rest on top of the ridge, we coming back down, saw 2 bison with new-born calves, who, unlike elk, seem to stick close to mom. Mom bison is a lot more for a predator to mess with than mom elk! A big bull bison looked up at us as we passed close to him on trial, and expressed his sentiments by taking a long pee.
The other group returned. They had seen a badger just across the river from the parking lot.
We packed up and moved back to Slough Creek, and parked just inside the access road. We walked up to a high grassy knoll (that term seemed to come up frequently, for some reason) just west of the road, which gave us a commanding view of the swollen, meandering turns of Slough Creek, and the mostly grassy and rocky slopes of Buffalo Plateau on the far side of the river, which were dotted with bison, and several small herds of elk. Here and there were stationed solitary cows, no doubt keeping an eye on their newborn calves. Three coyotes were yipping just below us. Then the spectacle began.
Steve spotted a pair of adult grizzlies working their way up from the bottom of a sagebrush- covered slope on the other side of the creek, heading upstream. Above them, a herd of elk bunched up and began to move up the hill. The grizzlies broke into a lumbering gallop. They continued relentlessly for about three hundred yards, while the elk ran ahead in a tight bunch. A calf was lagging behind. The bears stepped up the charge and caught up with the calf just as they dropped out of sight over the rim of a bench, and into some aspens. We never say them come out. A cow circled around, agitated.
While the bears were pursuing the elk, Betsy spotted a wolf on the other side of the river bend sitting in the grass down near the water around the bend in the creek to the left. It was a black yearling of the Rose Creek pack. It worked it's way across the marshy flat. At one point it disappeared down into a follow, while a cow elk circle around. We thought the wolf might have taken a calf, but it emerged again and began sniffing and searching for rodents in the grass. Meanwhile, a gray adult, probably the alpha male, came down the hill on a game trail, then worked it's way back up the hill toward a stand of large aspens, where their den is thought to be located. Another dark wolf joined it. They paused in the clearing in front of the aspens, scratched themselves, and the adult defecated. They disappeared into the aspens. Later, a dark wolf slowly worked its way up the slope above the aspens below a herd of elk. They looked up, but the wolf was not testing them.
This entire scene struck me as being like the American version of the Serengeti plains - in one view we could see multiple predators and their prey in action: the slopes dotted with elk and bison, and simultaneously see two grizzlies pursuing an elk herd on one side of the river bend, while members of a wolf pack foraged for rodents and lounged near their den on the other.
We packed up and left while the young black wolf hunted for rodents along the far side of the river bank. We were feeling elated. We couldn't have been any luckier. These were the best view of grizzlies and wolves of the whole trip.
As we headed home along the main Lamar Valley, just about as we passed the Ranger Station, Steve called out that there were two wolves running across the flats on the far side of the river. Once again, he amazed us with his ability to simultaneously spot wildlife that none of us could see, at the same time that he was driving the van and carefully dodging giant potholes. We pulled over hurriedly, and could see a herd of elk running to the left; but the wolves were now walking along a small tributary creek bottom. They stopped and began to feed on a carcass.
Betsy instantly recognized them as the surviving members of the Crystal Creek pack: the light gray alpha female, and her black male offspring. This was a joyous moment for Betsy, because she had helped take care of these wolves in the pen before their release. She wasn't sure until now that they were still alive: The alpha male had been killed by another pack, and only these two wolves remained, in poor condition, eking out their existence in the upper Lamar Valley; Betsy had not seen them for three months. Now, they looked fat and their fur was sleek. While the female fed, the black one repeatedly chased way ravens that were handing around. Betsy remembered that this particular wolf hated ravens. The black one then fed on a piece of meat off to the right under an aspen. They the two wolves marked the ground one after the other, and, trotted up the hill and out of sight.
Like Tuesday's drama, this was another panoramic and epic kind of eco-experience. The richness of wildlife and scenery reminded me of the descriptions of the untouched Missouri and Yellowstone River valleys by Lewis and Clark. In one view we could see the river bottom and hillsides dotted with bison and elk. Just above the water line, bank swallows were escavating their nesting burrows in a cut bank. In a dead aspen near the wolves, sat an adult and an immature Bald Eagle, and a raven waited patiently as members of the Crystal Bench wolf pack fed on a carcass, and marked their reoccupied territory.
This scene also reminded me that the reason we saw so much, and had such a rich experience, was a function of being in the right place, at the right time of the year, at the right time of day, and with expert guides who were able to pick out specks on a far hillside, and with their deep knowledge of these animals, transform seemingly empty vistas into living worlds of animals.
We had great luck in seeing what we did - the scenery, the numbers and types of animals was phenomenal, but perhaps the best was the dynamic behavior and interaction of all these different animals in their natural element - it was like witnessing a live nature show on the Discovery channel.
Our hosts and guests, and our dinners at the end of the day, were as much fun as seeing the animals. I won't get into all the personalities; heedless to say, a diverse and fun-loving lot.