Wildlife Viewing in Yellowstone
By Tom Mallon
Stepping into a national park is a privilege that we, as citizens of an increasingly urbanized world, are lucky enough to be able to enjoy. Our national parks are home to some of the most pristine, productive, and unbroken habitat that remains on the planet. Spend a couple days exploring a national park and you may just forget what it’s like out there in the “real world.”
Yellowstone was the world’s first national park, and for good reason. It’s home to 60% of the world’s geysers and more than 67 species of mammals. With 3,400 square miles of beauty and grandeur, Yellowstone is the heart of one of the largest intact temperate ecosystems in the world, covering an area larger than Rhode Island and Delaware combined. It’s become a premier destination for wildlife viewers and photographers, as well as outdoor adventurers from all around the globe.
I had the opportunity to travel to Yellowstone for a few days this spring to photograph the native wildlife. How hard could it be, I thought, to drive into the ‘American Serengeti” and come back with a photo of a wolf or a bear?
Boreal frogs croaked as I stood on the banks of Swan Lake. Warm spring temperatures had melted the ice on the lake, but winter was still alive in the high country.
Spring in Yellowstone is a special time. The silence and solitude of winter are replaced by a chorus of croaking frogs, chirping birds, and raging snowmelt. The Park sheds its winter coat, and its famous yellow snowcoaches retire into summer storage. Crews work tirelessly to plow the Park’s 322 miles of roads and 125 acres of parking lots to prepare for the influx of summer tourists. After months of freezing temperatures and thick snow blanketing the highlands, the warmth seems to be well received by the native wildlife. Baby bison, pronghorn, elk, and deer abound around every turn, crossing roadways with little regard for traffic and bedding in lush river valleys.
On my first morning I woke up well before sunrise. Stars filled the sky above me like static dancing on an old television set. The air was calm and the night was still quiet. My headlights cut through the darkness as I drove east toward the Lamar Valley. There were no signs of cars in front of or behind me as I navigated the winding roads, constantly scanning the peripheries for families of bison trying to cross with their newborns.
The stars faded as the blackness transitioned to a deep purple, gradually becoming lighter until I could decipher the silhouette of hills surrounding me against the dawn sky. I stopped at a pullout overlooking the Lamar Valley and set up a spotting scope.
Seeing wildlife involves luck as much as it does timing. I was confident that I had the timing part down after my alarm jolted me awake at 4:15, so now it was just a matter of getting lucky. As I sat there on the side of the road watching steam rise from the river, I wasn’t quite sure where to start looking for wildlife. The landscape surrounding me was so vast that there could have been an elephant drinking from the river and I may have missed it. It was a lot to take in.
Traffic began to pick up, a sure sign that other wildlife watchers were out and about. The driver of a passing car waved, signaling me to follow. I wasn’t sure who he was or why he decided to wave to me, but he seemed confident that I should follow. I packed up the spotting scope and followed him down the valley.
Near Soda Butte, the car rolled into a pullout where there were at least 10 other people lining the edge of the road scanning furiously with their spotting scopes. “What are you all looking at?” I asked one of the observers. “Grizzly bears,” he replied.
I was ecstatic. It was barely 6:30am and already I had an opportunity to see some grizzly bears. I got out my binoculars, spotting scope, and camera; the trifecta I knew would afford me some great wildlife viewing and photography opportunities. The generous crew, comprised of seasoned Yellowstone wildlife watchers, helped me position my scope so that I could hone in on the mother and 2-year-old cub that were sitting in some sage brush high on a hillside above us. For more than an hour, we waited for the bears to move. They didn’t budge.
Finally, the bears sat up and began to move through the sage, sauntering down the hill toward us. They were a good ¾ of a mile away from us and did not seem to be aware of our presence. I was hoping they would decide to wander a bit farther down the hill so that I could snap a photo. It was just about this time that someone in the group shouted excitedly, “Another bear!”
We repositioned our spotting scopes to face across the river valley on a distant, snow-covered hillside. A massive male grizzly barely visible to the naked eye sauntered into view. He stood at the crest of the hill and began to run, post-holing his way through deep snow as he charged down the hill. What was he running toward?Another bear!
There, in a clearing below the boar, was another male grizzly, this one a bit smaller. The bear at the bottom of the hill saw the larger male charging toward him and decided he wanted nothing to do with the situation. He retreated back into the trees and out of sight. The group basked in awe at the bounty of wildlife we had seen already this morning. Four grizzly bears from one spot was a good start to the day. We watched the bears a little longer until they all wandered out of sight. It was only 7:30am. Onward.
I continued down the road and stopped when I saw another man with a spotting scope aimed at a distant hillside. I stopped to ask him what he was viewing. Black Bear. Again, the bear walked through a small clearing and ducked into some trees shortly after I saw him. Another short drive down the road and I saw four moose, some big horn sheep, a fox, and a couple coyotes.
The next morning, I started just as early. This time I stopped before the Lamar Valley at Slough Creek, where a congregation of people was beginning to form. I walked to the top of a hill in the brisk darkness with my scope and camera and set up next to a man I had met the day before, an experienced wolf spotter. He helped me set my scope on the wolf den across the valley, which was about 1¼ mile from where we were standing. We watched and waited.
Finally, as the dawn grew lighter, a wolf emerged from the den. The alpha female, who presumably had a litter of pups in the den, walked out and sat next to her den. She threw her head back and began to howl. It was a magical experience. The early morning sun’s rays shimmered on the river below us as a bison waded across to the other side, sending ripples through the glassy golden water. A male pronghorn danced through the sage brush with his harem of four does, darting between groups of bison. Behind us, another mother grizzly bear and her cub were digging up roots on a far-off hillside. Raw, untamed beauty at its finest.
I left the park that afternoon and drove back toward Bozeman. You don’t have to drive very far outside Yellowstone’s boundaries to find signs of agriculture and residential neighborhoods. Fences, houses, stores, and cows stood in stark contrast to the unfenced wild country that I had been immersed in for the past few days. I passed a waste transfer station that was overflowing with garbage and thought about the bears moving out of Yellowstone and into these areas littered with attractants. Many of the bears have found ways to accommodate tourists, hikers, hunters, and a quickly growing population in Southwest Montana, but attractants like accessible garbage make it difficult for the bears to stay out of trouble.
Inside the park, bears and wolves have domain. They are the main attraction for many tourists who come to see the wilder side of our country that disappeared when much of the West was developed. When the animals leave the confines of the park, they leave the safety of their home. We think of this as our territory now, and that makes it our responsibility to do our part in keeping them safe. Yellowstone is a treasure to be preserved. It serves both as a reminder of true wilderness, and as a model of coexistence.