August 31, 2014

2 wolves and an elk.

Today was spent in one place – Coyote turnout in the Lamar Valley. I got there around 6:30 in the morning and left at 7:45 in the evening leaving only once for a bathroom break. The reason for staying there was that 2 wolves had driven an elk into the river and were trying to catch her:

The pictures aren't very good because it was well over a half mile to the action. Most of the time, the elk would stand in the river and the wolves would be lying in the grass a hundred yards away or so. The elk stayed in the water because that was the safest place for her. Chest deep water on an elk means the wolves have to swim to attack her and that doesn't work. Every hour or so, the wolves would go in trying to chase her to shallower water, but she would always escape. This would go on for a few minutes until the wolves were exhausted from all that swimming and would go back to lying down.

Other times, the elk would get out of the cold water and the wolves would chase her back in. Once she got so far from the river that the wolves almost caught her before she could get back to the safety of the river.

In between, it would rain on us and then the sun would come out and then it would rain again. In the morning Doug McLaughlin, the man I'm going to buy the scope from and who takes all the photos for the wolf charts was there with hi big furry dog, Jake. I talked to him about the winter gear I'll need for a January visit to Yellowstone.

All day long, people would stop and see what we were seeing, so I would tell them the story and let them see the wolves and elk through the scope. Sometimes they would get to see a chase and sometimes just a wolf standing or stretching. Some people stayed several hours and saw several chases. Lots of people got to see their first wolf today and were pretty happy about it.

Finally around 7:30, the wolves tried again and, after failing, turned for home. They left the valley with the elk standing in the middle of the river – still alive.