Bears and wolves in Yellowstone

My last post from the US will be a return to Monday 7/27, when we spent over an hour in the freezing cold at around 6:30-8AM to watch three grizzly bears and 2 wolves duking it out for an elk carcass. We'd decided to get up early to catch the sunrise and maybe to have a better chance of seeing animals, and since a certain someone had read that the upper plateau (the part with Old Faithful in) was supposedly a good spot, we set off shortly after 5AM.

We stopped to take some pictures of the sunrise, but we did not see a single animal until we came to the road that connects the eastern and western halves of the Yellowstone traffic system. A couple of minutes in, we saw several cars parked along the road and people were all staring south. I parked and we got out. First I saw one wolf at the edge of the field. Then I saw another in the woods. And then I saw the bears. We spent over an hour there, taking loads of pictures and talking to other tourists and some locals.

We were told that the wolves had killed an elk either Sunday morning or Saturday night, but that the bears had now moved in and were staking their claim for the carcass, which I can only assume was dwindling fast. Apparently this is not uncommon behavior and can as easily happen the other way. What was special about this kill was that the wolves and the bears were now sharing the meat, if not in peace, then in a grudging acceptance of each other.

I also overheard some local old timers talking about the lineage of the wolves and Albie apparently saw pups at one point. There's actually an organization with their headquarters in Gardiner which tracks all the known wolves in Yellowstone, with family history and everything. Anyways, watching these magnificent animals was the highlight of my trip, possibly the highlight of all my trips everywhere and one of the greatest single moments of my life.

I started out with over 600 pics, but I have cut it down considerably - the whole photographic loot of 127 remaining photos can be viewed here.

At this point I only had eyes for the lone wolf in the field.


Then I saw the bears.


Three of them, in fact.


The elk had originally been slain down in the field, but the bears had dragged parts of the carcass into the woods. Here, a wolf is back at the source.


Later, the bears also went down there for refills. Every time one of the two species went down there, a huge flock of birds lifted from the dead elk. In many other pics you can also see several types of birds of prey sitting around in the trees, biding their time.


At one point, one of the wolves was alone up in the woods and used the time to tear off some good sized chunks.


At another, one of the wolves demonstrated her gender...


Later, she took off, possibly to check on the puppies. We then packed up and were ready to leave, but she came back, so we stood for another 15 minutes.


Beautiful doggie.


This one time, a wolf got too close.


And the bear reacted.


But it was just a warning, not an attack.


And soon they were back to stuffing snout at a somewhat respectful distance.


At one point, early in the proceedings, one wolf actually laid down in between three bears. I've never even heard of such behavior.


This is the last useful photo I took. The wolves had gone and two bears were mopping up the scraps. It had been a magical event, where the beauty and the savagery of nature were both on display and my love of Yellowstone has never been stronger than it was then and there.