Present
Bison and Grizzlies and Wolves! Oh My!
By Betty Lowry, member Society of American Travel Writers© 2003 Betty Lowry
Bison and Grizzlies and Wolves! Oh My!
By Betty Lowry, member Society of American Travel Writers
Some years ago when we camped in Yellowstone National Park with our children we transferred all things edible into the car and still had black bears sniffling around the tent. This time, traveling as a couple and staying in park lodges, we shared the general bewilderment at signs posted on Old Faithful Inn exit doors warning of bison waiting to charge. How would they get through the crowds?
In fact, a lone bison chomping the grass outside the Lake Yellowstone Hotel at dusk held its audience at a respectful distance. Cars skidded to the side of the road when a handful of elk appeared 100 yards away across a stream. In the Visitor Center at Grant Village a ranger was explaining to a camper that coyotes are shy creatures and, sorry, but you have to go to Glacier National Park to see a lot of moose.
Yellowstone, the world's first National Park (1872), is no mere zoo without walls, but a habitat for the wild animals of the west set in a naturally fragile ecosystem. Humans with their summer tour buses and winter snowmobiles are, at best, clumsy guests who must be kept out of harm's way. Within the park's 2.2 million acres of forest, grassland and water the 59 varieties of mammals have largely learned to avoid our kind. Even with 300 miles of public roads and 950 miles of backcountry trails, less than three percent of the wilderness is easily reached.
When Yellowstone was first debating whether to open its roads to automobiles (until 1908 you reached the gates by train but took a horse-drawn carriage into the park) argument was raised that the noise would drive the big animals further into the wilderness. When the last wolf was shot in 1926, the lovers of wildlife read it as the end of an era.
The park is home to the nation's last free-roaming buffalo herd, and any that wander outside the park borders (they follow the easy paths cut by and for snowmobiles) are shot by state and government agents ostensibly to protect domestic cattle from a disease not yet proved contagious. In January, 2003, the herd was officially declared overpopulated by approximately 1000 suggesting the possibility that buffalo killing would be carried out inside the park as well.
In fact, saving wild animals was not the original design and probably would have been a hard sell to Congress in 1872. The Act of Dedication read "For the Benefit and Enjoyment of the People."
We picked up a map titled "Where to Look for Grizzly Bears and Gray Wolves," and in the lobbies of the lodges there were daily postings of previous day animal sightings. Serious seekers were advised to join an early morning ranger-led safari. "Luck and coincidence" were the watchwords in the Official Guidebook.
The park rangers also recommended the Grizzly & Wolf Discovery Center, the not-for-profit bear and wolf preserve just outside the park gates in the town of West Yellowstone. Here rescued animals unable to survive in the wild live in a recreation of natural habitat. In 2002, 10 captive-born gray wolves and eight rescued brown bears were in residence.
Although the animals in the Center cannot adapt to life in the wild, their natural pack behaviors remain. They have been given names for easy and familiar identification and can be observed taking their natural roles of, for example, dominance and submission, age yielding to youth, acceptance and rejection. A group of school children was chatting knowledgeably about the unquestioned leadership of the alpha male and female. "I remember Luna," one boy said. "She died so Alyeska took over."
Most of the resident bears were orphaned as cubs; but others had grown too accustomed to human foods, become dangerous pests and were under a sentence of death when they were captured and brought to the Center. Since research on bear habits cannot be conducted in the wild the opportunity to observe goes far beyond voyeurism into studying the rudiments of animal behavior.
We arrived when the animals were sleeping off a meal, and not a creature was stirring. It was a good time to watch a film about the process of returning the wolves to Yellowstone in 1995. The catalyst was the Endangered Species Act of 1973 but accomplishment came after years of litigation and was only possible after Defenders of Wildlife promised to pay the ranchers for any livestock eaten by the returned predators (the Defenders of Wildlife Wolf Compensation Trust).
The Discovery Center was formerly owned by New York based Ogden Entertainment and about to be closed down as "unprofitable" when it was acquired and revived as a not-for-profit facility in 1999. Executive Director/Veterinarian Dr. Gale Ford led the way in making the public aware of the situation, and Dr. Steven Forte of Bozeman stepped in to secure a loan from Empire Federal Savings of Bozeman. Membership pledges from the employees, local businesses and the public poured in.
The new Center redirected its efforts to education and conservation and its mission to preserve rather than to entertain. In 2002 the American Zoo and Aquarium Association (AZA) accredited it. Support is from entrance fees and tax-deductible donations (800/257-2570 for information) as well as profits from the gift shop. Staffing is largely by volunteers.
Graduate students use the Center in conjunction with National Park study projects (grizzlies eat a pound of meat per minute; people in bear country both overestimate and underestimate risk). The Park Service uses the auditorium in the winter for free public lectures on topics as diverse as "3000 Days on Snowshoes" (elk and bear research) and "Union Pacific & the National Parks of the West."
Meanwhile back in the park, the ecological balance of predators and prey is approaching normal. Scavenging animals (this includes grizzlies) benefit from the carcasses left after wolf kills. Mother elk are no longer lax in shepherding their young.
From the camper's point of view, it is helpful to know that bears climb trees as well as demolish coolers. ShowerTek Inc. of California asked the Center to test a bear-proof garbage can. Now the State of Montana has asked the Center to test trash containers for their bear-resistance. The first three containers were outsmarted by the grizzlies, but we have been advised to watch the website for updates.
At present all garbage must be refrigerated in order to keep bears from scrounging through the trash. The refrigerated garbage facilities were custom designed for the park's specific needs and are unquestionably a big improvement over stuffing everything into the back of a station wagon.
Yellowstone National Park is in the northwest corner of Wyoming. Open all year (interior roads close early
November-mid April) though the crowds peak June-September. Bring a warm jacket or sweater
for evenings and rain gear. Visitor Centers at major attractions have orientation films
and hikes led by park rangers.
More Info:
Grizzly Discovery Center, 800/257-2570
Yellowstone National Park, 307/344-7311
Defenders of Wildlife, 202/682-9400
Defenders of Wildlife Kids' Planet
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