Tag Archives: wolves

Near-sighted Wolves

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As you can see by the above photo there is a new plague troubling our friends the wolves. It’s not just the Wyoming legislature or mean-spirited ranchers but a new disease called lupus prope aciei or Wolf Near-sightedness. It is a relatively new disease for these wolves, only having been discovered after researchers found them stumbling and bumping into things as the wolves tried to follow a scent trail on their hunt. The researchers had been following up reports of wolves with large swollen noses and bruises around their head and shoulders seen sitting listlessly along the roadside. They had taken to walking along the asphalt because of the lack of obstacles in their way, pathetically nose to tail, like tired circus elephants, sometimes the young pups even holding on to their parents tails with their mouths. If wolves could cry it would have been their Trail of Tears.

Just what is this affliction really though, you might ask. Well here you can see a prime example of this problem in action. The wolf in the foreground has just scented an elk or buffalo or a tourist with some pizza and is peering about myopically trying to locate its possible prey. See it squint its eyes, that’s not a Clint Eastwood imitation, no, that is lupus prope aciei  at work. That poor wolf can not see past the end of its own snout. The wolf in the background who is also afflicted is desperately trying to ascertain what it is it just stepped in.

The federal government sent in a canine Ophthalmologist to test the wolves hoping to discover the cause of the wolves ailments but due to over-zealousness in the doctor’s approach and his handling of the wolves he was never seen again. These are wolves. They’re near-sighted not domesticated. So as of right now we know little about the cause and/or treatment of this debilitating affliction other than don’t be grabbing no wolf by the nose to look in its eyes unless you get some type of formal agreement first. That, and wolves can’t digest badges and optical testing equipment. It’s not much but it’s a start.

Fortunately or unfortunately, depending on your point of view, these wolves are now safe in a modified enclosure near Yellowstone National Park until they can be cured. All the rocks and other wolf-height lumpy obstacles are in the process of being wrapped in a protective foam covering and other taller impediments such as trees, large shrubbery, shovel handles, barrels to store wolf chow in, etc., are being modified with an application of foam Bollard covers, a technique borrowed from the maritime industry to keep large oil tankers from damaging those expensive metal posts on the docks they tie up at. This may safeguard our wolves for the time being but is not by any means a long-term solution.

One drawback to this approach is that it hasn’t been determined whether wolves like the taste of foam. If that turns out to be the case, that wolves do indeed like the taste of foam, perhaps a solution would be to spray the entire compound with an industrial strength product like Grannick’s Bitter Apple Spray, which is used to keep puppies from eating your credenza, and is available at fine pet stores nationwide. It’s just a thought.

But listen, a word of warning. If you should come across a wolf sitting forlornly along the roadside staring at his feet, don’t rush up to it and offer your condolences about its condition, Wolves don’t like that. Instead in a moderate tone say something like “Hey, dude, What’s up? You OK? Anything we can do for you?” Something like that. Do not and I repeat, Do not rush up and grab its snout and start looking into its eyes to see if it is near-sighted or not. I mean, this should go without saying but there are some of you out there that watch way too much TV and might be tempted to utilize the Disney approach and offer aid. Don’t do that. There are trained professionals on duty to handle situations like this. Call them. Let them do their jobs. Instead if you feel like you want to help, send cards, or donate those used eye glasses into the many drop-off boxes located throughout the area, or make a donation to the lupus prope aciei fund or simply drive on by. You can help more just by sending them your good thoughts.

Dreams

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I dream of many things. Walking through a pine forest, stepping carefully on each shadow so I don’t break the sunbeams dappling the forest floor. Stopping, listening, is that just the wind, or is it an elk cow brushing against the pine boughs as she secretly returns to her calf. I dream of finding the choke cherries along the Gibbon river ripe enough to eat and there are many of them. I dream of these things and more. I dream of the fierce joy of killing a buffalo, feeling it become still under my claws, eating it, eating as much as I can hold, then resting to eat even more.

I dream of warm, sun filled days where I stand chest deep in fresh green grass, feeling the earth soft beneath me, perfect for digging out marmots and ground squirrels, perfect for leaving my tracks on the rich dark earth. I stand and smell the scents of all the others around me, the elk in the aspens upriver, the wolves cleaning up the remains of their last kill, the scent of those strange beings that always seem to find me no matter how I hide. I smell the sharp heavy distinctive odor of another male, one I haven’t met before. I remember it as I will probably have to fight him. And I smell the pure cool air of the wind itself, it tells me where I am, who I am.

I dream of the female I have mated with the last two seasons. I dream of her fierceness, her strength, the feel of her razor-sharp claws on my side when I first approach her when she is undecided and uncertain. The summer is passing and it’s time to find her again. I dream of the high snow-covered ridges where I must find a place to rest through the cold months, I dream of being fat, heavy with enough energy stored within me so that I wake in the spring. Sometimes I dream of another small one, just like me, that I wrestle with and race across the meadow to find our mother so we can drink and sleep and play again, but those are hazy dreams, indistinct and shadowy. I dream those less and less as time goes on.

This is a good day to sleep, the warm sun on my back fills me with comfort. I will wake in a while but for now I dream, I dream, I dream.

Oh Yeah And Where Is This Exactly

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_DSC8003Gray Wolf & Raven  Yellowstone National Park             click to enlarge

You often seen wolves clustered around an elk or bison carcass that they’ve brought down, congratulating each other with high fives, and stuffing themselves until they can’t move. How are they always able to locate these animals so precisely to successfully make their kills.

The short answer is they use paid informants. These ravens are notorious C.I.’s or as they’re known in the trade, Confidential Informants. Because of their incredible mobility and their incredible greed, they are able to find that straggler elk or injured buffalo and will willingly give them up for a small price, usually a piece of liver or maybe a nice strip of tripe, and before you can say “OMG, Look at that!” the wolves are on them and it’s Thanksgiving day all over again.

This CI who is known by his cover as “Ratzo”, has just seen an injured spike left behind when the herd found out the pack was in residence and is in the process of dropping a dime on him right now. Unfortunately for the spike his days are numbered unless he can get to the free clinic and get that leg looked at. I gotta say it doesn’t sound promising however. As they say around here “So sad, Too bad for you Spike” but that’s the way nature works, here in nature. You scratch my fur and I’ll ruffle your feathers.

As we head into the Thanksgiving holidays we can all be thankful for several things, number one, we’re not a spike with a bum leg. Number two, we’re also not out in that cold snow. And number three, you’re fortunate enough to live in a time when you have an organization like “The Institute”, that center of knowledge, little known facts, and misinformation, to bring you the latest exclusive information on the workings of Mother Nature. It’s a new way of looking at the world around us and I’m sure we can all agree, that itself is worth the effort of reading these posts. Happy Holidays.

Yellowstone Halloween

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Halloween is a special time for young buffalo in Yellowstone. Most of their days are scary enough but Halloween is extra scary because that’s when all the wolves dress up as buffalo calves and go play special tricks on the herd.

Since wolves are very good at making costumes and applying makeup they can sometimes look just like your little herd buddy until suddenly you’re the trick and they’ve gotten a treat.

Add some snow to the mix and you can’t tell who that is taking your best friend Iggy, for a walk into the woods. Best stay real close to Mom, at least you know she’s not a wolf in Buffalo’s clothing, Right?

Checking In

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Things are still slightly chaotic as the various organizations struggle with reopening after the shut down. It’s not just a question of taking down the yellow crime scene tape and  throwing open the gates. The various groups that had been dispersed have to re-gather, check in and get their new assignments. Their new id cards have to be issued and duty schedules have to be worked out. Late arrivals have to be tracked down to make certain the pack is up to full strength and to make sure they’re all present for the final muster before they turn the tourists loose in the park. Logistically it’s just another screwed up monkey dance to get the place up and running again.

Felony VonLupus, master-at-arms of the Hayden pack is seen returning after getting the word out to some of the stragglers that hadn’t checked in yet. She has been working tirelessly to get the pack reformed so they qualify for their elk allotment. If the pack isn’t at full strength they won’t get their kill authorization for their full allocation of elk and buffalo and with it being this late in the season they’re going to have  to work double-time to bring down enough animals as it is, to make it through the winter. Plus this whole shut down thing meant that the instructors, being government employees, had to cease training so they didn’t have sufficient time to get the young wolves up to speed in elk killing let alone how to bring down a full grown buffalo. So they’ll have to spend valuable time on OJT, or on the job training, to turn the youngsters into proper killing machines. There’s going to be a lot of ripple effects from this fiasco.

But problems or not, they’re ready to open this place up for business and get everybody back to work. At least for the next month or two. So I feel better, don’t you?

Sandhill Reeds

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Sandhill Cranes will nest almost anywhere. They have been seen nesting on tiny little islands on Floating Island lake in Yellowstone National Park, out in the middle of open fields and in the case of this one, in a field of reeds that make up a small wetlands in the Blacktail creek area.

Choosing a field of reeds doesn’t seem like an unusual place to nest until you factor in bad luck. Normally this Sandhill crane could count on brooding her eggs without mishap, unless an opportunistic coyote came along and tried for an easy meal. But what she didn’t know was her nesting place was in a natural crossing area for some of the parks main predators, a pack of wolves on one side and a black bear on the other. Blacktail flats sees a lot of animal movement. The blacktail pack of wolves moves through the area constantly and it is also a place black bears seem to like.

This day I was shooting the Blacktail pack of wolves devouring a buffalo carcass on her right and if you could look to her left there is a small pond like many that dot this Blacktail Flats area, which is out of the frame. Swimming across the pond was a good-sized black bear.

All of this activity was taking place in an area perhaps 300 yards across. First I’d shoot the wolves for a while then I’d swing the lens over to the pond with the bear in it and then back to the wolves again. As I made the traverse I noticed movement in my view finder and up pops this Sandhill crane who had the misfortune to put her nest in the middle of the wildlife freeway.

The bear was obviously hungry and spent his time rooting around digging in the ground for grubs, eating grass and slowly working his way towards the Sandhills nest. The wolves were too busy finishing off the buffalo carcass and hadn’t noticed the bear. If they had it would have been very likely they would have run right over the crane and her nest to run the bear off. Helping themselves to the crane and her eggs on the way. They don’t like to  share. But she never flinched or made any movement that gave away her position. The bear noticed the wolves, the wolves noticed the bear. The bear took off rather than deal with seven or eight wolves and the wolves stayed and finished off the carcass. And the Sandhill crane put her head back down and didn’t move a feather, and what could have been major drama was over as fast as it started.

It’s unusual to get that much wildlife activity in a small area like that but every once in a while the photographer gets lucky. So did the crane.

If I Was A Wolf

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First off I’d spend a lot of time just looking around, checking out what’s going on, see who’s doing what and generally keeping up with the daily grind out here in wolf land. If you don’t know where the elk are and more importantly where your buddies are, you are not going to be eating warm elk meat this evening. You are going to be shivering your tail off in the snow and hungry to boot.

The next thing I’d be doing is making sure I always kept my wolf face on. Looking like I mean business, squinting a little keeping that Eastwood thing going, the ladies dig that stuff, but staying cool at the same time. It also keeps that young son of a bitch, Render, from getting too cocky. You got to watch the young ones, they’re always hungry and I don’t like the way he’s been sniffing around Misdemeanor either.

Also I’d be working on my image, keeping all that PR going about ‘Wolves are Good’ and having a positive image like what’s-his-name, the one in Dancing with Wolves, man, dead space in my head, I need some protein, oh yeah, Two Socks, that’s it. Now there’s a wolf that’s done some good for the community. I understand he got plenty of bones for that gig, and a t-shirt with this picture on it too. That’s cool.

The other thing I would most definitely do is have the batteries charged in my GPS so I knew exactly where the park boundaries were at all times. It is getting dangerous out there. I heard there were two wolves from that DunRoamin pack that left the building and now no one has heard from them since, not a peep. They’re a different bunch up there in the north end, they name their kids weird and I heard they would even eat Bighorn sheep when they could catch them. The story goes that Ray Everett and Curtis Leroy, two of their better take down guys, went off the res to find mulies but came across some Herefords instead, (first rule in Wolf Law, first one, never, ever, even think about cows) and wolves being wolves, especially dumb ones like these two, probably did what they should never have done. We don’t even talk about it down here. And cow owners being cow owners probably did what they do and that is follow the ‘3 S’  rule which is Shoot – Shovel – and Shut Up. There is plenty to eat around here so teach the young ones like Coppola said, ‘Never Get Out of the Boat’ because there are tigers out there.

Finally I would pack into each day every ounce of joy I could into just being a wolf, spending time with Misdemeanor, nuzzling the pups, especially that little fat one that likes to bite my tail, hanging out with the buds, figuring out the best way to bring that elk down so you don’t get kicked in the jaw like Drooler did, and just letting the incredible experience of life wash over you. That’s what I’d do if I was a wolf.