September 5, 2012

WE HAD HEARD FROM SEVERAL SOURCES a grizzly bear had been observed the day before in Hayden Valley, about ten miles south of our lodge. Hoping to spot one of those elusive creatures, we got up shortly after dawn and drove down to the valley. About a hundred other people had also heard about the bear and were staring off in the direction it had been seen the day before. Despite a few dozen spotting scopes and even more binoculars, no one saw the bear. Because we were up so early, we headed over to an early morning Ranger presentation a few miles from our lodge. Her first-rate presentation focused on a remarkable photographer named Johnson who took the first photos of Yellowstone in 1871. His photos became famous and helped accelerate he movement to declare Yellowstone our first National Park.

We then had lunch and visited the Learning Center, a euphemism for a small museum. 
Complete with short videos, relief maps, and attractive displays, it gave me my first glimmering of understanding of the geology of Yellowstone.  I understood the topic even better after listening to another ranger presentation later in the day. He was so good that we sat through his second talk, an explanation of the thousand year old symbiotic relationship between ravens and wolves.

As curious as it might sound, ravens and wolves hunt together. To use an incipient cliché, each brings something to the table. Wolves, hunting in packs, are able to take down most animals and rip them open. While ravens are meat eaters, their beaks are not capable of breaking through the skin of dead animals. They do have one helpful skill, that of spotting potential prey and alerting the wolves by circling over the potential meal. As a result, ravens and wolves often hunt together, the ravens spotting and the wolves killing. It is a common sight to see wolves and ravens having dinner together over an elk carcass.

For a number of years in the park ravens did not have their wolf friends to help them find meat. By the mid-1920s, wolves had been eradicated from the park. Wolves feed on elk; and the absence of wolves allowed the elk in the park to increase to unmanageable numbers. With no predators, elk began to destroy the park’s habitat. In 1993, the government created a huge controversy in the western states by deciding to reintroduce wolves to the park. Farmer and ranchers in the areas near the park were ready to lynch the park’s management. To allay the fears of the farmers and ranchers, the government created a fund to reimburse livestock owners for the value of any livestock killed by wolves. Not satisfied with the government’s palliative efforts, within a few years a class action law suit was filed in federal court to eliminate the reintroduction program. As the evidence unfolded, it became clear that less than one percent of the farmer/ranchers’ animals who had been killed by predators had been killed by wolves. Also, the fund the government created had hardly been tapped. The judge ruled in favor of the park.

In the fullness of time, the wolf haters prevailed. As of August 30 of this year, wolves were taken off of the endangered species list and now can be shot on sight outside of certain protected areas like Yellowstone. A second law suit, filed a number of years after the original abortive one, had produced evidence that the wolves had extended their range far beyond the park, even into surrounding states. It was the day of jubilee in Wyoming, and the local papers’ headlines announced the government’s decision with banner headlines similar to the ones they must have published proclaiming the end of WWII. Little Red Riding Hood can now go visit her grandmother with no fear of a wolf posing as her grandmother. 

Carole picked up another Jr. Ranger badge today. In each of the booklets she has had to complete to obtain the coveted badge, she has been required to draw a picture. Every ranger who has signed off on her completion of the badge requirements has been impressed with her artwork. Carole has always had artistic abilities. When she graduated from high school, she even considered going to college at the Chicago Art Institute. Her level- headed father, however, wisely concluded that he did not want her going to school with “those hippies.”

Hearing about another lead on where to see grizzlies, we drove about 15 miles north to where they were supposed to be hanging around getting ready for winter. Wherever they were hanging around, we didn’t find them. We took another shot at finding the Hayden Valley bear. When we returned to Hayden Valley, we found instead several hundred buffalo. They must have come in search of the bear too. We also witnessed some of those stupid people who visit the park and ignore the ubiquitous warning signs. While we were observing the buffalo from the safety of our Durango, a huge buffalo approached the passenger-side door. A teen-aged girl and her parents moved to within 15 feet of the beast. They will probably tell other visitors that the rangers are wrong; buffalo are not dangerous.