Article in USA Today

Hopefully I can paste a reference to an article in USA Today written by one of the students who was here this fall. http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2009-12-14-Wolves_N.htm This gives some idea of what is happening here. Steve

Pictures from Jim

The past few days I've been working on my pictures. Here's a collection of some recent ones - many of the wildlife images from Yellowstone are from roadside encounters - we've seen coyotes, elk, bison, wolves, otters, fox, and many birds. Of special note is the bison calf, it's only a few months old, very unusual for this time of year. We first saw it during a "bison jam" on the road where we had to stop and let them pass - then yesterday I spotted it again with its mother and other bison grazing off the side of the road. The otter was an unusual sighting - we know about where they hang out and every time I pass that spot I stop and check it out - yesterday I was lucky!

Happenings from Yellowstone

We have our share of celebrities here in the Park. This week David Brancaccio was doing a piece on the wolves and probably the results of the first hunting of wolves in Montana and Idaho. His show is www.pbs.org/now and the result should air sometime in January. Watch for it. In addition there is a Nature series and on January 17 they will air the latest grizzly/wolf video. It is called Clash and the filming was done by Bob Landis, who we have seen on the road daily as well as presentations here at the Ranch. The last class of the Food for the Masses is finished and we got to visit several carcasses. The amount of debris left after the ravens, coyotes and wolves work on a carcass is minimal. Just a little hide and some bones. The winter study with the Park end on December 15. Now we have some free time and the temperature is reasonable, above 0 degrees, so we hope to get back to our hiking and if we get some snow, cross country skiing. Steve

Wolves, some info

The wolves were introduced into Yellowstone in 1995. At the peak there were well over 100 wolves. But in recent years the population has declined to about 80. The official count isn't until the end of 2009. The same has happened with the major prey, the elk. There were some 19,000 elk in the northern range in the late 90,s and now the count is down to 9,000. It is possible that an equilibrium is being reached. Most of the deaths this year have been from other wolves, probably 13 wolves killed that way. The browse of willow and aspen that was depleted from the high number of elk is starting to recover which brings in other animals such as the beaver. To give an idea of the capacity of a wolf, their stomach can hold 20 pounds of meat. But they do not usually eat that much. Also, the teeth of the wolf are only designed to bite and tear. They can't chew, so they have to depend on the canine diet of meat. There are different studies of the Yellowstone wolves, in fact one individual, Rich, has been watching wolves in this Northern Range of Yellowstone for 9 years and 5 months, every day of the year, without a break. The Park has what is called the winter study going on right now and another in the spring. They track the wolves from the ground as well as from the air. The radio collars enable the studies to get data that would be very difficult to obtain otherwise. So they know for instance that the major prey is the elk and the elk who are killed are mainly the older and diseased animals. We are learning a lot about the ecology of this area as well as seeing many different birds and animals. But right now we are dealing with a cold spell, the official low yesterday was a minus 22 and the high was minus 6 Fahrenheit. Too chilly to be enjoyable. More later, Steve

Carcasses

Here are two examples of carcasses that we have recently seen. I'll try to show another carcass that was taken by one pack, the Slough Creek, fed on by the Miller Pack (three brothers) and also by the Druid pack. Sorry the photos are mixed up. The top one is the wolf kill. The intact carcass at the bottom was near the road and probably an old elk. Notice what I call the Druid girls, they gather the data on the carcass. They remove the teeth of age dating, cut the bone to examine the marrow for health, and take a leg to also see how well the elk was doing.

Food for Masses Update

The new group started on Tuesday and it was very fruitful. Steve is supporting and that day we discovered a carcass, saw two young wolves near the carcass. Another carcass (a bull elk) was killed the night before and we observed it for two hours in the AM. Ravens and coyotes and an eagle were the main diners. This carcass was killed by the Blacktail pack. In the PM we returned and two wolves from the Druid pack were feeding on the carcass and we recorded for another hour until a light snow reduced our visibility. The carcass was about 4 miles away and with a 75X scope the ravens and other critters were visible, but with the 60X scopes the images were very tiny. The next morning, Wednesday, we went to Slough Creek drainage to look around. And we found a new carcass. It could have died of old age and when we started watching there were coyotes and ravens feasting. Then we had a report that the Miller pack was coming in our direction. The amazing thing was than after they crossed from the Lamar Valley to Slough Creek drainage they went across the creek and directly to the carcass. The theory was that they could smell the dead bull elk. But they did not hang around for long since there were in foreign territory. Wolves are very territorial and the Slough Creek pack lives in that area and the Druids were visiting nearby. And there were only three Miller Creek wolves and they could easily be outnumbered by the larger packs. The wolves mark, just as the coyotes do, the territory that they claim. Today is Thanksgiving and Linda and I have the day off. We went for two short hikes and are now ready to enjoy two 20 pound turkeys with 15 other people who live and work in the area. It will be fun, but because I have to drive the bus at 7 AM tomorrow, I'll be on my best behavior. Steve

Food for the Masses - Session 1

Monday evening we finished Session 1 of Food for the Masses. Although we never had a carcass to study, we enjoyed long days of wildlife watching and several short hikes. In addition to bison and elk, we saw coyotes, wolves, white tail deer, mule deer, pronghorn and big horn sheep - birds spotted included blue grouse, golden and bald eagles, rough legged hawk and the ubiquitous ravens and magpies. We listened to coyotes sing, wolves howl, and owls hooting in the night. It was a marvelous week!