I don’t know how many of you have ever seen a wolf pack up close other than scenes from TV or a movie, but it is an entirely different experience in person. Wild things look at you differently, they treat you differently, and unless you are an overt threat they don’t seem to care that you are a human. They are willing to co-exist with you as long as there is mutual respect. This pack is known as the Blacktail Flats pack as it includes the Blacktail flats area in the northern part of Yellowstone National park in it’s hunting range. The pack was fortunate to come across a buffalo carcass near one of the many ponds that are in the area and spent several days taking full advantage of this large meal. This photo shoot took place about 75 yards across a small pond on what turned out to be the last day they were there. That was because there wasn’t anything left to eat when they left late that evening. This grey kept a close watch as it came down for a drink.

Since this pack had been feeding on this carcass for several days, they came and went as they felt like it. Occasionally most of the pack would be there and sometimes just one of them.

The carcass is being whittled down by the constant feeding. They eat everything, from bits of the hide to breaking the bones open for marrow.

Sometime the younger wolves need to be shown who the bull duck in the pond is. This is usually a short lesson.

When they get down to the point where there is nothing left but the big main bones in the carcass it takes a little cooperation to get them separated. With both wolves pulling from opposite directions something finally gives and somebody gets a nice big juicy leg bone. That seems to be the end of the cooperative spirit as they don’t share well at that point.

They have been eating a lot, almost non-stop, so every so often they take a break and go goof off. Its time to run, roll in the grass, teach the young to behave themselves and just generally work off some of that buffalo.

Even when everyone else can not eat one more bite there is always one who can fit in a little more. After all they don’t know when the next meal is coming so one more bite can’t hurt.

OK, enough fooling around, there is still some buffalo left so this job’s not done.

The carcass is almost gone. You can see by their stomachs that they have been giving this their all. There were five wolves at the most on this kill during this shoot. There were more wolves in the pack but since all this was taking place in about two hours the entire pack wasn’t there. Supposedly there were anywhere from seven to as many as twelve wolves in this pack.

It is very nearly done now. Some of the more experienced members of the pack are taking away pieces of the buffalo for eating later. All that remains is the hide and horns and blood stains in the grass.

Starting from a fairly respectable amount of buffalo when the shoot first started there is little left. Some of the younger wolves will come back over the next day or so to glean what ever small parts were dropped and lick the grass. Hopefully the ravens and other scavengers will have missed some.

The last wolf leaves with one more small meal and the feeding is over. It now a little past 8:00pm and very nearly dark, in fact we needed flashlights to get back to the cars. The originals of these images are very, very dark, so much so that without the miracle of Photoshop you would have a hard time making out any detail at all. The experience of sharing a meal (so to speak) with these wolves has been a once in a lifetime opportunity and simply incredible.