We groggily woke up at 5 and stumbled into the car. After driving for a bit we arrived to meet Jeremy, an expert wolf biologist who works for the National Park Service. While we waited for wolves to appear, we had a talk about wolves. We were told that rocky mountain wolves were down to the 700s in the entire United States by the 1930s, but they rose back up to 1000 and 1500 in Montana and Idaho respectively after being reintroduced. Their original goal was to get to 150 wolves in those states, so this was a happy surprise. One of the wolves in Yellowstone, named "1084," traveled all through Wyoming to Colorado, and found a mate. Now Colorado has its first set of pups in 150 years! We drove to two different spots in Lamar Valley to see the wolves. In the first spot, we saw 6 wolves moving quickly into the trees across Lamar River. We recognized this spot because it was quite close to the area where we observed the bison! The wolves seemed playful and we witnessed their complex social hierarchy. However, the group soon moved out of frame into the trees and we moved a mile down the road onto a hill. This time, we saw another group of 2 wolves napping in the sunny plain. The 6 from earlier met with the new group, and they began playing together, rolling around on the grass and wrestling with each other. Jeremy showed us a paintball gun from the trunk of his car that he uses to deter wolves from the roads. He also told us that 1/3 of the wolves in the park have GPS or radio collars.
As we were wolf-watching, we spotted a bison pooping. We wanted to collect a fecal sample, so we kept our eyes on the spot where the bison had pooped, and then approached the poop a safe distance away from the bison herd. We put on gloves and used little spoons to break the crust of the poop and scooped the creamy interior into small plastic bags. Of course, as a symbol of accomplishment, we high fived the slimy, slippery, steamy pile of fecal matter, making sure not to splash. After a successful fecal-five our fecal collectors then high-fived each other with their poopy gloves. We then collected another, smaller poop sample from an adult male pronghorn. We noticed the pronghorn appeared unhappy that we had taken its poop and it decided to replenish the pile. After our collection we showered our hands in sanitizer to cleanse the little pieces that slipped through.
We drove to another
spot in the park and discussed the wolves’ complicated history in the park.
However, our lesson was somewhat interrupted by a black bear sighting. The bear
trotted around the woods, scratching itself on trees and munching on berries.
We approached a shady spot with several rocks to sit on, and we discussed the
viewpoints of various stakeholders in the Yellowstone wolf conversation. We
paired up and were each assigned an organization or lobbying interest. We read
articles pertaining to our organization and discussed the issue of wolves in
the Western United States from the perspective of our assigned roles.
We drove to Norris
Geyser Basin to explore. We learned that the varying colors of rock in the
different geysers could be attributed to the different minerals that make up
each geyser pool as well as the microbes that live in each geyser pool.
Microbes are more spongy and wavy, whereas minerals are more rock-like. Three
things affect the microbes living in the geyser pools: temperature, pH, and
chemicals, and impact what can live within each pool. Seasonal changes impact
the microbes as well. Each pool has three layers: the top layer of photosynthesizes
(usually cyanobacteria), a middle layer of photo heterotrophs, and then a
bottom layer of anaerobic bacteria that survive in extreme conditions. We
spent some time walking around the geyser basin and exploring the different
features before getting back in the car and driving back to camp, stopping
along the way to drop our poop samples off with the National Park Service. It
was super cool to see all of the different thermal formations with the colored
rocks and steam!
We had mac and cheese
for dinner and then played Taboo for our QFK, which was really fun!
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