This site is dedicated to wildlife and landscape photography.
This site is dedicated to wildlife and landscape photography.
I photographed this wolf way back in 2008. She was returning with her pack to a bull elk carcass at North Twin Lake that a very large grizzly had taken from them. The grizzly slept there and ate virtually every bit of the elk over a period of a few days. She was illegally shot just across the river from the town of Gardiner a few years ago. Unfortunately, they never caught the killer.
A gray wolf crossing a creek in Yellowstone.
This wolf had been feeding on an elk carcass in this Yellowstone meadow for a few days. Note the full belly. During that period I never saw another wolf or bear at the site.
Many years ago the entire Canyon Pack passed by me at close distance. This was at Twin Lakes. Actually, it happened twice. The other time I was photographing marmots at the north end of Yellowstone Lake. The marmots started screaming like crazy. Then I got a glimpse of a Canyon Pack wolf walking on the other side of the marmots. When that ended I decided to quit. I turned around to go back to my car and, lo and behold, another Canyon Pack member was ambling along between me and my car parked twenty yards away. I had a 500mm lens in one hand and a tripod in the other hand. All I could do was watch as it went by. At least I got the shot above near Twin Lakes.
My Favorite Wolf
I was saddened to hear a month ago that the alpha female of the Canyon Pack had died. She was a very popular wolf and one of only a few with white coats. In the photo above, she was only three years old. The little bit of dark fur you see in this photo was replaced by white fur as she matured.
It was reported that she had lived twelve years. That’s a long life for a wolf. The average life span for a wolf in the park is six years. I assumed then that she had died of old age/natural causes.
I first got to know her in October of 2008. She and her three pack mates had killed a bull elk at the north end of North Twin Lake the day before I happened on the scene. When I arrived there was a large male grizzly protecting the carcass from the wolves. I was told he took the carcass from them shortly after they had killed it. That is very common. Some grizzlies in Yellowstone have learned to follow wolf packs for days until the wolves make a kill and then they take over.
I learned yesterday that she had not died of natural causes. She had been shot and was found by some hikers. She was alive, but in bad shape. The hikers contacted the National Park Service which examined her and determined that she could not be saved. She was euthanized. I went from being sad to being angry.
NPS has posted a reward for $5,000 leading to the arrest and conviction of the person responsible. That amount was matched by a conservation organization, Wolves of the Rockies. I was told by a friend that the reward has since climbed to $20,000. You can read more about the story here.
In spite of many suits by conservation organizations to keep wolves protected under the Endangered Species Act, I believe they are no longer under its protection. However, the wolf was found inside the boundaries of Yellowstone National Park. NPS has regulations against discharging firearms and killing wildlife in the national parks. Hopefully, the culprit will be found and successfully prosecuted.
This is one of only three wolves that remain in the Lamar Valley. At one time there were over 30 wolves in the Lamar. Wolf numbers are down throughout the park due to various factors such as wolves killing other wolves and humans shooting wolves when they move outside park boundaries.
I have hardly seen any coyotes or wolves this spring. Today was a good start in correcting that. The first thing I saw to photograph was a pair of coyotes moving down from the Mammoth area toward the Gardner River below.
Not long after that I saw two wolves crossing the Blacktail Ponds area and headed my way. Both wore collars. Unfortunately, they changed direction and this photo is as close as I got to either of them. As of December 2012, there were only 79 wolves in the park. The highest count was 171 in 2007. Ten wolves which lived in Yellowstone most of the time were shot in the first hunting seasons outside the park. Most were shot within a mile or two of the park. Eight of the ten were wearing radio collars. Anyone with radio telemetry can now find wolves with the radio telemetry and shoot them when they leave the park which it seems people are doing.
While I haven’t seen many coyotes or wolves, I have seen quite a few red foxes which I used to hardly ever see.
