Those of you who follow the blog religiously or even non-religiously, know that we have just been on our bi-annual inspection trip of Yellowstone National park. We let you know of our plans to inspect the park in this posting http://www.bigshotsnow.com/the-words-out/ . Well we’re back and we are excited to announce that Yellowstone has passed its inspection with flying colors.

As mentioned before we went up there this year with a new research vessel, aptly named The Mothership, a newly commissioned, completely overhauled and refitted land yacht, large enough and strong enough to be able to tow our shuttle craft and haul the nearly eight dozen interns we intended to use as bait animal aggressiveness testing investigators. We had decided on a new strategy this trip which included dressing our interns up in various animal costumes, to mimic small prey and injured or helpless larger animals such as an elk calf with a damaged leg, etc. to see if the predator population in the park would act in an appropriate manner or not.

We have good news and bad news as to the success of that strategy. The good news was the predators acted in a completely predictable way when confronted with our bait animal aggressiveness testing investigators. The bad news is it resulted in a complete loss of every single one of our interns. That’s a great big oops on our part. We were hoping that at least a few of them would make it through the different testing situations but that was not to be the case. However we are able to completely verify that a wolf will always be a wolf and a bear will always be a bear.

After completing the section on our report titled “Predator population still aggressive in its pursuit of prey” we were able to check that item off as a yes and get on with the rest of the inspection. This resulted in The Director, who is of course me, having to handle a much larger work load than originally considered. (Note to self: Consider holding back some of the interns in the next inspection this fall to do all of the crap work required.) But as one who leads from the front we sucked it up and got on with all the remaining tasks involved in completing an inspection of a facility as large as Yellowstone National Park.

There are many, many areas to be checked to complete this task and over the following days we will attempt to show you the various areas and critical events which must take place to keep the park functioning at the level expected by the visiting public. Are the young being born on time? Are the thermal events turned on and operating properly? Are the predators doing their jobs? Well we can cross that one off now. We know the answer to that one. Are there the proper number of smaller activities being performed, birds doing bird stuff, plants situated in the most scenic areas, large overviews of the park like snow being on the peaks in the Lamar valley, rivers running up to their banks but not over, all the usual stuff the public doesn’t notice until it’s not there.

We can state at this time that park is functioning exactly as required. Our first function check, the one we do right before we release the interns, is to see if the Buffalo, especially the bulls, are placed strategically throughout the park and in the proper numbers. As our inspection of the park always begins through the West entrance of the park along the Madison river, it is imperative that a master bull, one of the better looking more regal appearing ones, be stationed just past Seven mile bridge, in the first major meadow but not too far from the road, so it can fulfill its duty as the official icon of the park. We checked that one off as done.

Watch this space for further reports on your very favorite national park. Tomorrow should bring something interesting.