Monday, June 1, 2015

Wolves! (finally!)

After updating the blog yesterday, I saw this moose:

This was a good wolf morning. Since I kept missing all the action in the Lamar Valley, I thought I'd go down to the Hayden Valley and see what was happening there. But first, just a quick run through the Lamar, first. That turned out to be a good choice.

When I got past the ranger station, at around 6:00 am, there were a bunch of cars on Hubbard Hill. I stopped and a man told me they were seeing a gray wolf way to the east. So, I moved a mile or so east to Trashcan turnout.

After a bit of searching, found not 1 but 3 gray wolves. They turned out to be members of the Junction Butte pack. I watched them moving around, paying attention to one specific bison. Then, 2 of them moved a hundred yards of so away and lay down. The other, however, stayed near the bison, harassing it and nipping at it. Soon, the other 2 came charging over and they all were all over the bison. Within a minute, it was down and they were tearing at it. By this time, I had been joined by a couple from San Francisco and 3 other women. We all watched as the wolves worked on the, now dead, bison, taking turns looking through the scope.

Later in the morning while I was watching from Hubbard Hill, a large group of bison came over and chased the wolves off the carcass. They then stood guard, keeping the wolves off.

So the wolves got back together and left, their bellies full:

Then, we heard that the Lamar pack had killed a newborn bison calf, so I headed over there. I didn't take the camera out but we saw 3 wolves, including the alpha female of the pack. She took what was left of the calf and, also with a full belly, carried it up to the den across the road to feed her pups.

Not a bad morning. Then, I went up to Bozeman to investigate cameras. I stopped back to see if anything was happening on the bison carcass on the way back, but there were only ravens. There will be more wolves and probably bears in the next 2 days.