28 Mar
Location
Home
Days adrift.  Click here to see our best and worst experiences so far.
4994
Number of flights.  Click here to go to the itinerary page.
35
Bus, train and taxi rides.  Click here to see all posts relating to transport. (56 posts)
185
Miles walked.  Click here to see all posts relating to walking and trekking. (43 posts)
581
Countries visited.  Click here to see what we think of them. (14 posts)
15
Number of species spotted.  Click here to go to our wildlife page.
1157
Photos taken.  Click here to go to the photo gallery. (105 posts)
13288
Rainy days.  Click here to find posts relating to the weather. (50 posts)
63
Number of times scammed.  Click here to read all about it!  (2 posts)
1
Otters spotted.  Click here to go to our website about otters: amblonyx.com
45
 
...two travellers in search of the world's wildlife

1 October 2012

Wolf jam

19th September 2012

Arooooooo! We drove back up through the Hayden Valley this morning, seeing nothing more than bison, and found that the elk carcass had a wolf chewing on it. Over the course of an hour there were four different wolves at the meat, and near the end a brave little coyote showed up and started scouting ever closer in the hope the wolves were just leaving. Eventually we needed breakfast ourselves and turned around. More bison and two coyotes on the way back.

In the afternoon we repeated the trip and found a single wolf on the dwindling remains of the elk. There were still at least forty cars pulled up at the roadside to ogle the spectacle, and of course any passing cars were also rubbernecking worse than those checking out a pile-up on the M25.

This single wolf was our single find on the whole afternoon drive too, the only other excitement being an equally large scrum of cars near Fishing Bridge that had been watching a black bear swim the river. We’d missed it by five minutes.

Near dusk I spotted a gaggle of ravens in the woods about thirty yards from the road. On investigation it looked like they were gathered on a deer carcass that had no sign of predation, i.e. a natural death or roadkill. So we noted the spot and decided to check it the next morning, just in case.

Still, those wolves have got to be one of the highlights of our trip (of course the otter sighting is always the main highlight), they’re a really iconic species. And by all accounts this was a good sighting; plenty of people were telling us that typically wolves are viewed up to a half-mile distant across the valley using a spotting scope. These were scarcely 100 yards from the road. More than that, this location was less than half a mile from the Canyon Village Visitor Centre! So that would explain the 40+ cars and the constant vigilance of several park rangers to avoid any idiot behaviour from the avid watchers.

Related Images:

Tags:

Leave a Reply