Twelve wolves from the Slough Creek pack first surrounded and then, simply sat or lay in the snow confronting (“testing”) a taciturn innocently grazing huge bull bison. Two lay directly behind him. Several more positioned to either side. Three stood or sat in front of him.
The deceptively ponderous looking prey occasionally maneuvered his massive head side to side checking on his detractors’ whereabouts. However, he stood his ground. He didn’t panic. In fact, he didn’t move out of his tracks.
It was the wolves’ next move. After about 15 minutes, the entire wolf pack rose and moved out single file. The bison resumed using his massive head to shovel through heavy snow seeking browse. He had passed the pack’s test – for now.
The wolves traveled about a half mile further and went through another face-off with two six-point or better bull elk. Each bull faced opposite directions standing side by side. They duplicated the defensive maneuver the bull bison employed moments before – did absolutely nothing but stand their ground. After about fifteen minutes, once again, the wolves moved on.
About a mile further across the mountainside, moving left to right, they crossed a solitary bull elk’s path. This time only one wolf showed interest in a potential elk dinner. It went into sneak mode, circled the bull and eased up ever so slowly from below the elk’s level as it crept through what looked like low-growing evergreens. The bull elk backed into the center of the small clearing where it had been feeding. It then braced to confront the predator struggling clumsily out of the evergreens.
Now standing face to face, suddenly, the wolf assumed a submissive posture dropping its tail. Then, body held low to the ground, it stretched toward the elk as far as it could. Next, the carnivore crept cautiously, inch by inch, towards the prey species. The bull, in turn, drew back as if recoiling in extreme distaste. The wolf stretched closer – eventually reaching its snout up as if to touch noses with the bull. In fact, through the spotting scope, it looked as if that might actually have happened.
A group of us watched the above events through spotting scopes set up by our biologist guides furnished by Wildlife Expeditions - an affiliate of the Teton Science School in Jackson, Wyoming. At the next event, we all laughed spontaneously at the incongruity of it.
Apparently, the elk snorted, blew or conveyed some negative response that thoroughly and suddenly frightened the groveling wolf. This fearsome predator of Red Riding Hood infamy literally fell over backwards getting away from the elk. After scrambling to its feet, it fell again when tangling in low-lying evergreen growth. In the midst of scrambling, the wolf cast nervous furtive peeks at the elk over its shoulder. The fearsome carnivore rejoined the pack now disappearing over a high ridge at a very great distance from our position. They eventually traveled out of sight.
Paul Brown and Scott Larson, Wildlife Expeditions (W.E.) leaders of our group, located the above pack assisted by radio telemetry signals transmitted by radio-collared member of the pack. Rick McIntyre, Yellowstone ranger, keeps electronic tabs on Yellowstone’s various wolf packs virtually on a daily basis. McIntyre is widely known for sharing telemetry data with anybody that asks. Even without that hi-tech assistance on this trip, Brown demonstrated time and again an incomparable knack for knowing where to find Yellowstone’s wolves.
McIntyre graciously took time to lecture our small but eclectic tour group about his tracking equipment while we stood listening, fully engrossed, in windchills approaching -20-degrees F. Our group hailed from L.A., California’s Napa Valley, Missouri, Iowa, D.C., Connecticut, Alaska and Switzerland.
We watched the above pack test different prey situations over more than an hour and a half at below zero temperatures. The wolves were stared down in three out of three face-offs with legitimate prey. Their livelihood is earned at great risk to themselves. Often, wolves are killed or seriously injured when bringing down a meal. They appear to have an innate sense allowing them to determine when a prey is vulnerable and when not. Weighing the cumulative effects of Yellowstone’s extreme winter environment plus the physical abuse these predators suffer earning a living, we were told the average life span of a Yellowstone wolf is only four years.
Several elk wolf kills were spotted near the highways. We learned to locate them by large numbers of ravens and magpies drawn to such sites. At one, near Silver Gate, a large herd of big horn rams and ewes fed unconcernedly all around an elk wolf-killed carcass. No wolves were in view but raven and magpie activity was significant.
One day wind gusts exceeded 30-mph. Drifting snow added its effect to a snowfall accumulation that never stopped coming down the entire trip in the Lamar Valley/Cooke City portion of our tour. Herds of hundreds of bison, with snow burdened backs and faces, grazed throughout Lamar and Hell Roaring Valleys. Massive heads plunged into the snow burden. With side to side motions of their massive heads, they shoveled the white stuff aside exposing frozen browse underneath. This activity builds the muscle-bound hump between their shoulder blades.
Huge bull elk were prolific in the valleys too. Normally, in milder seasons of the year, they habituate Yellowstone’s higher elevations to get away from crowds of tourists, ambient heat in the lower valleys and hordes of insects. Winter’s heavier snow accumulations at higher elevations cause them to migrate lower such as into the Lamar Valley shown above.
After spotting a wolf elk-kill near Tower Junction’s Highway 212 intersection one morning, I asked Brown’s permission to approach the carcass and photograph it. It laid just below the highway maybe 100-feet down from the road in a drainage ditch.
I got the go ahead. Brown warned snow would be buttocks deep at the bottom. Not only was I wearing cold weather insulated wear (inner and outer), which included snow pants tied at the bottom, but I invested in a pair of Cabelas’ snow-gaiters when passing through Sidney, Nebraska enroute to Yellowstone. They were about to amply repay that investment.
I followed the wolves’ solidly packed snow trail down to the carcass. While standing beside it photographing the death scene, I backed up a half-step too far trying to frame the entire carcass in the viewfinder. I plunged clear to my belt buckle in loose snow not packed by the trampling of wolves feeding around the carcass’s perimeter. Thanks to the gaiters and waterproof insulated clothes, it was a laughable experience. It assuredly was not a place to be wet through to the skin and freezing.
One huge bull elk, the biggest seen on this trip, was first spotted near Tower Junction’s intersection. It laid in deep snow, head twisted at a grotesque and unusual angle. It appeared dead - stone cold dead. A large yellow ear-tag was affixed to its left ear with the number “10” stamped on it in bold black print.
Brown pulled into a nearby pullout to get the safari style van off the road. Those that wanted could exit for pics. As I exited the vehicle, I looked back at Brown and jokingly stated rather than asked, “You’re not gonna let me go down to this one are you?” I laughed at the consternation on his face and told him I “knew better.” The other carcass had been stripped the bones. This one didn’t appear fed on at all.
There were several possibilities, including: We might have scared the wolves off before they had a chance to feed. Approaching such a carcass might ultimately discourage wolves from feeding on it given reports of their aversion to anything smelling like “it-walks-on-two-legs.” The first elk carcass was stripped to the skeletal structure – at least on its upper side.
I moved some distance away from the vehicle to get a better perspective. While taking pictures using Canon’s 100-400 Image Stabilization telephoto plus an extender, I zoomed in at full power. An ear twitched at the same time Brown called to those around me, “Don’t let Cliff go down! It’s alive!” That raised a chuckle from our group. I wear hearing aids and don’t always hear things the way that I should. Brown hollered so loud and emphatically, I had no problem understanding. Especially, in view of what my own eyes told me!
Suddenly, that magnificent animal raised his immense rack out of the ice and snow. When he slipped off to the Land of Nod, that rack was so massive he apparently couldn’t hold it erect. However, even after awakening, it barely opened its eyes to take much note of the activity interrupting its nap. It couldn’t have shown less concern about us.
Brown by now stood beside me. From the ear tag, he identified it as an elk that previously got in trouble at Mammoth Springs while foraging lawns inside that unique and historic community. Wildlife agents trapped, ear-tagged, and turned him loose farther out into the park out of the harm’s way it agitated for itself inside Mammoth Springs.
I would see this criminal again come the following September. He shepherded a harem of about 50 cow elk and calves around town “mowing” lawns. It seemed a proper community service to repay past misdeeds - amply fertilized them as well.
One evening, enroute to Cooke City, Brown stopped opposite what appeared to be about five fenced acres near Soda Butte in the Lamar Valley. Brown referred to this fenced enclosure as an “exclusion pen.” In fencing it, grazers such as elk, bison and antelope can’t influence plant growth inside such pens. Aspen growth and other woody plants regenerate abundantly inside them. Throughout the Lamar Valley and Hell Roaring area, aspen communities often present unusually thin and straggly looking growth. However, Brown pointed out scattered aspen communities that allegedly were wiped out once but now are making dramatic comebacks. According to Brown, biologists give Yellowstone’s wolf packs partial credit through their reduction of excessive prey numbers.
Continuing on to Cooke City, warm showers and hot food, we happened on a herd of big horns. Full curl rams bedded above us on an overhanging shelf above the road. A herd of ewes fed upslope from the rams. Brown motioned me in position so I could secure images of the biggest full curl ram. We stood there, immobile, tripping a shutter now and then. Before long, a ram grazed casually towards us - thirty yards, twenty, ten, finally 15-feet - or less. Finally, it grazed nonchalantly on by us. YES!
When editing this series of images after returning home, I noticed this ram’s right eye was gone – so freshly destroyed, the wound still oozed considerable corruption - probably a result of fighting. As it grazed from our right to left, it was the left eye most visible to our naked eye. At the time, we noticed nothing unusual. Later, I couldn’t help wondering how seriously that injury handicapped this magnificent animal when wolves eventually “tested” him.
Winter in Cooke City was scenically reminiscent of Bavarian Alps or Swiss alpine communities. After mid-September, half the mini-town’s businesses close - the other half remain open – restaurants, motels, lodges, watering holes, one lonely service station where you can also buy a loaf of bread, a dozen eggs and a new snowmobile to get them home if desired. No banks, no churches, no Wally-World and the only grocery store closes from September till the following May.
Businesses remaining open plow ever-accumulating snowfall into huge piles in front of the closed shops. Those piles reportedly don’t melt till the following May. The town reportedly averages 300-inches of snowfall annually.
At night, Cooke City’s neon signs cast their spells on other-worldly scenarios. With quarter-sized snow flakes drifting, now floating, then darting in the air, the view approached a rustic scene set in a “snow-globe” placed on a coffee table near the yuletide Christmas tree.
However, when doing a 360 on the snow-burdened centerine of Cooke City’s Beartooth-Highway Main Street, it seemed a magical spell had inserted us in the “globe” this time.
Winter’s sojourn through Yellowstone set the wheels in motion for a fall season return - Part III.