Woke up today at serious 0-dark thirty (4:30), and drove up the Lamar Valley in Yellowstone, in search of wolves. Frequently had to drive thru herds of bison, who seemed to think they owned the road!
At 0600 we stopped at a turn-off on the Slough Creek road, and walked out to an overlook where the Druid Pack had been sighted yesterday – after 30 minutes, no luck, so we headed east on the road over to Lamar Valley.
The valley was full of herds of several hundred bison, interspersed with a few pronghorn antelope. The bulls were rounding into mating season, and had begun to harass the cows. We had to stop about a half-dozen times to wait for bison to mosey across the road, wander up or down the road, or to just hang out on the road. Bison, BTW, can be quite odoriferous – this Ann and I found out when we drove downwind by a large bull, with the car window open.
We’d read that to find wolves, look for gangs of wolf paparazzi with large viewing scopes on tripods. About two miles into the valley, we found a single gentlemen out by the side of the road with a scope set up. He was a Fish and Wildlife Biologist from California, who frequently came up to Yellowstone to view wildlife. We set up our own scope and started scanning the far side of the valley where trees met meadow and sage. After about ten minutes, the biologist sighted a pack of wolves coming out of the woods and into the valley among the bison. Most of the time, they were too far away to see much with binoculars, but using the scopes we counted five black and two grey wolves. At first, they would take turns harassing some of the older bulls. They never really got much of a chance at harassing any of the calves, who were carefully guarded by the cows and other bulls. It was actually a mostly serene scene – most of the bison seemed unconcerned. At one point, we spotted one of the wolves crossing the river, and working their way thru the sage about 200 yards in front of us. Catching several glimpses of it thru my binoculars was quite exciting!
After about 20 minutes, we lost sight of the pack, and moved down the road a mile or so, and joined a larger group of wolf groupies on a low hill. At one point, a large bull came trotting by, sending all of us scrambling away with our tripods and scopes!
From the hill, we spent the next two hours watching the wolves alternate between lying down awhile, and then getting up and wandering around a bit among the herd. They didn’t seem overly intent on making a kill that morning, more just hanging out in case a good opportunity presented itself (none did).
We also spotted a grizzly off in the far distance. Around 9:30 the last of the pack headed back into the woods and disappeared, and we went off in search of breakfast.
Rumbles on the Road 