Yellowstone NP: The Current State of Bear Affairs

While visiting Yellowstone National Park at the end of May, my parents and I spent at least half of our time watching the wildlife. While many of these animals mostly reside in Yellowstone these days, at one point the entire stretch of the Rocky Mountains sported all these animals. Some still do, such as elk, deer, and big horn sheep, but grizzly bears, wolves, and bison were once in danger of disappearing from the lower 48, so Yellowstone is one of the few places to observe them. However, park boundaries are arbitrary to wildlife and these animals’ territory has expanded.

As promised, I’ll be sharing my best wildlife photos from our recent adventure.

The Animals of Yellowstone

Playful Ewes

Ewe is the name for a female big horn sheep (while the males are called rams). We spotted these ladies on a stretch of rocky cliff. Big horn sheep are excellent climbers because of their split hooves. It helps them grip the rock and stay balanced. The rams sport big curved horns that, like trees, can also be used to tell how old they are. In the fall, during rut, they charge at each other and crack heads in displays of dominance. The sound can be heard from a mile away.

The females have horns as well, though smaller and not as curved. The ewes in these photos have tiny horns, so they’re probably only a year old.

Wily Wolves

With a stroke of luck and timely advice from a park volunteer, we also saw wolves in the distance watching over a bison carcass. A den with at least three pups was up on the hill behind, about two miles away, and a whole host of wolf lovers were gathered to watch for the wag of a tail or the tip of a snout, but once the closer-in wolves disappeared among the sagebrush, we moved on.

Yellowstone National Park is one of the best places in the world to spot grey wolves. If you look closely, the grey one has a collar around its neck. Many animals in Yellowstone are tracked so researchers can study the wildlife. 

There are about 100 wolves in Yellowstone right now, and more outside the park. In the winter, their diet is primarily elk, but in the summer it’s more diverse, adding bison and deer. Outside of the park, most wolf deaths are human-caused, but within, most deaths are due to other wolves. 

Additionally, introducing wolves to Colorado can impact farmers and ranchers with livestock. Though unlikely to kill adult cattle and horses, young cows and horses as well as sheep, goats, and family pets will be at higher risk. As distant cousins to wolves, dogs are at especially high risk because they are viewed as competition for territory. 

However, wolves used to roam these lands and it’s because of human interference (hunting, trapping, and the reduction of habitat) that the wolf population was so depleted. Bringing them back is restoring a future that we stole. The time it takes to find a new balance, however, will likely be long.

Problematically, finding this balance will be exacerbated by this additional human interference. Because, in 2021, just months after the ballot proposition passed, Colorado got its first grey wolves. And we got them…the natural way: the wolves migrated down from Wyoming. Yet, Colorado still plans to introduce 30 to 50 wolves by the end of 2023. I understand it’s difficult to find the line between management and meddling. If the government had not reintroduced wolves to other states, we might not have a single wolf in the lower 48 today. But, at some point, you have to simply let nature do its work and stop sticking your nose into it.

Burly Bison

Bison look cumbersome, but they can run 35 miles per hour and even jump fences (which I would have loved to see). We did get to see some bulls messing around and of course, it’s May, so we got to see many bison calves.

Velvet Elk

In the spring, bull elk lose their antlers. Like a child’s tooth, new antlers grow in and push out the old antlers. We collected some of these dropped antlers a few weeks ago. It takes most of the summer for bull elk to grow back their antlers, so we caught these guys in an awkward stage.

Sleeping Bear

A family friend told us how to tell the difference between a black bear and a grizzly bear: “If you climb a tree and the bear climbs up after you, it’s a black bear. If you climb a tree and the bear shakes it until you fall out, it’s a grizzly bear.”

This is a black bear.

No, I did not climb a tree. There is an actual way to tell the difference.

While the black bear we saw was black and the grizzly bear was brown, that’s not always the case so you can’t rely on color.

Grizzly Bear

Grizzlies are a protected species and it’s illegal to hunt them in the lower 48. They are hunted in Alaska (and obviously don’t exist in Hawaii), but the discussion keeps coming back around to if Wyoming should allow grizzly hunting. Grizzly cubs are hunted by mountain lions and wolves, and sometimes male grizzlies (boars) will kill and eat cubs, even their own. However, once grown, grizzlies don’t have any natural predators, thus management of them falls to humans. And, right now, grizzlies are doing significant harm to elk populations in Wyoming.

The one baby animal that I truly wished to see in Yellowstone was an elk calf. However, a family friend informed us that elk populations in and around Yellowstone are suffering. Each spring, grizzly bears hunt elk calves, canvassing hills in a grid pattern to find elk young laying in the sage brush. While my Dad and brother were out antler hunting in Cody, Wyoming (an hour from Yellowstone), they spotted a grizzly walking lines on a hillside. Later, they spotted a herd of 30-40 cow elk with a single calf among them.

Baby Bears

If you’ve got good eyes and were paying attention, you might have caught the little face of a baby grizzly bear peeking out from behind his mama is the third picture above.

But if you didn’t spot the bear cub, do not fear. I have a million baby bear photos!

Other than the spirit of adventure that permeated our trip and the good times I had with my parents as we scrunched into the van and meandered our way through beautiful, unique landscapes, my favorite part of the trip was the animal watching. I’m blessed with many opportunities to see elk, deer, and moose in Colorado, but it doesn’t diminish my excitement of seeing them again and again. The wolves, bison, and bears were new (thankfully, in the case of the bears!), and I was fascinated with the reality of the situation.

Stories and stereotypes and movies form an idea in your head, but the reality is far more intriguing.

If you missed it…

Yellowstone Post #1: Cruising the Crater of a Super Volcano

Yellowstone Post #2: Where the Buffalo Roam: Some Thoughts on Yellowstone NP