Saturday, May 28, 2016

Wolves and bears!

Today was a classic spring Yellowstone day for me – wolves in the morning and bears in the afternoon.

I started at Slough Creek at around 6:00 am, but the den area was all clouded in. We waited around for about an hour before it cleared up, but for the next 3 hours got adult wolves coming and going and pups all over the place. There are 10 adults and, depending on whose count you believe, between 8 and 11 pups, all in a space of just 2 or 3 acres. Each time the activity would die down, I would threaten to leave and a new adult would show up or somebody would see a pup or 2 at the den entrance and shout “Pups on the porch!” The porch is the flat area just outside the den entrance.

It really is an amazing place. It may be the only place in the world that is this accessible and has this good a view (with a good scope) of an active wild wolf den.

The afternoon was bears. I go pictures of one, but saw several more:

It was a good day.