Yellowstone Day 6
By Naomi Sacks
5:00 AM MDT
We got up bright and early for the special event of the day.
Breakfasts and lunches were already packed in our backpacks, which we placed in
the cars the night before. At 5:30, we stumbled into the cars in a sleepy daze.
We snacked on bananas and bars on the road. The instructors played their
special wolf themed playlist, featuring iconic wolf songs like “Werewolves of
London” and “Werewolf Bar Mitzvah” on the hour and a half long car ride. Most
of us tried to sleep on the way there.
6:45 AM MDT
We arrived at our wolf-watching spot. When we got out of the
car, there were five telescopes set up aimed at a mountainside more than a mile
away. We were introduced to a wolf biologist named Jeremy, who pointed out the
wolves against the gray rock of the mountains. We got to see a whole pack,
including pups! We could also hear faint howling in the distance. When the
wolves disappeared behind some trees, we watched a badger dig around in the
dirt. Jeremy then talked to us about his work with wolves in the park. Like
Carly and her fellow bison biologists, Jeremy and his crew used radio collars
on wolves to track them with radio telemetry. We got to see some of the
collars, including one that was chewed off. Jeremy talked about how they would
go to a location if there were multiple wolves staying there for a long period
of time to find remains of their prey and collect data on the wolves’ diets. He
also talked about wolves outside of the park. Some of the wolves he and his team
collared left the park and started new wolf packs as far as California and
Colorado. We got to feel wolf skins from previously collared wolves.
9:00 AM MDT
We stopped by the water to eat our second breakfast of the
day. We ate the bagels we made the day before. After breakfast, we talked about
different stances and approaches to wolf reintroduction to the parks and the
continental United States at large. We held a mock shareholder meeting, in
which teams of two represented different groups including ranchers, hunters,
indigenous tribes, various government organizations, and activist groups. The
conversation got quite heated, and we had a lot of fun.
11:30 AM MDT
We headed to Trout Lake for another hike. Like the hike at
Beaver Pond Trail, we were doing a bear safety survey. This time, we used an
ice cream code. Each hiker in a group
was a scoop, each bear spray was a sprinkle, firearms were syrup, and a bear
bell was a cherry. Fewer people had bear spray this time. The walk was
thankfully only around two miles total, and we stopped to eat lunch by the
lake.
3:00 PM MDT
After an hour drive through the park, we arrived at the
Visitor Center. We saw the one open exhibit, which featured taxidermied park
animals. We realized how much larger the animals were than they looked from a
distance. We also got to browse the gift store, which was extremely overpriced.
The instructors told us to save our money for a better gift store. At the
store, we found a star map, which we took photos of (hehe). Tonight we’re going
to go out to look at the stars again. This time we can point out more
constellations. Afterwards we drove to Arch Park to continue working on our
research projects.
5:30 PM MDT
We returned to the campsite. Dinner was mac and cheese,
which was a pain to clean off the plates. Afterwards we played a jeopardy-style
QFK about various Yellowstone mammals and fun facts about fellow campers. ‘Twas
a hoot.
11:45 PM MDT
We went outside to see the stars again! There were more
clouds, but we could still see some stars. This time we could recognize more
constellations and found Polaris.
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