Bears devour bison carcass during autumn trip to Yellowstone
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YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK — One of our favorite excursions during the fall is a trip to Yellowstone National Park, so last weekend, nine of us headed out looking for some excitement. It was unseasonably warm with the temperatures predicted to be in the eighties, but that did not deter us. Our destination for the first day was the Hayden Valley and then on to Cody, Wyoming, to spend the night.
The trip from West Yellowstone, Montana, to the Madison Junction produced sightings of three antlerless elk and a few of old bull bison lounging along the Madison River and the Gibbon River. The first real excitement came in Hayden Valley when we encountered our first “bison jam.”
I always get a kick out of watching tourists that have never seen a bison before get so excited over these large, slow, meandering animals. For those of us that have seen thousands of them, it is usually a “ho-hum” moment with the visitors being the object to view.
But it was not long before we got some long-distance excitement – two grizzlies feeding on a dead bison.
About halfway through Hayden Valley, a cow bison had died, and park employees had moved the carcass about a half of a mile off the road. We watched as one bear tore big chunks of meat off while the other bear patiently waited. Once the first bear had filled up, it started burying the carcass, but the other bear approached, chasing the first bear away and began eating. Two coyotes circled the carcass, causing the bears to stand on their hind legs to keep track of the wild dogs.
I loved watching the interactions between the bears and the coyotes, but we had other things to see. One of my favorite things to watch are the Harlequin ducks and the American dippers at LeHardy Rapids, so my family dropped me off while they visited the nearby mud pots. It appeared all but three Harlequins have migrated to the West Coast, while the dippers put on a show for me. Two dippers walked upstream, underwater, harvesting water bugs under the rocks that they stirred up.
As we headed toward Cody, we reminisced about the different bears we had seen over the years from Fishing Bridge to the start of Sylvan Pass. The last three trips we had observed a grizzly sow named “Raspberry” just as we started up the pass – it would be a repeat of those years.
In the exact place that we had seen her before, we ran into a “bear jam.” Raspberry was there with her new cub digging up rodents and rolling over the rotten logs to harvest the wood worms. She would be the last wildlife we would see as the heat of the day had most animals holed up.
After an enjoyable night in Cody, we headed for the scenic Beartooth Highway and the Northeast Entrance near Cooke City. Just before Cooke City, we started seeing mule deer and even had to brake for one just out of the city limits. A doe with a fawn posed for us long enough for some pictures.
We stopped at Barronette Peak to glass for bighorn sheep and mountain goats, finding only three goats on the sheer cliffs of the peak. Spotting scopes and binoculars were necessary to recognize what they were. At Slough Creek, we located a lone wolf of a reported 18 of the Druid Pack near their historic den. We waited for about an hour as several people had seen six wolves just an hour before we got there, but they too were probably hiding from the hot afternoon sun.
The sun was not bothering the huge herds of bison as they grazed, slept and the calves chased each other around the floor of the Lamar Valley. The mature bison used several dusting areas to roll in the dust to rid themselves of bloodthirsty insects.
At the Tower-Roosevelt Junction, we decided to head to Mammoth Hot Springs to see if we could find at least one herd of elk with a mature bull in it. But just a mile from the junction, we ran into a major bear jam. A small black-colored black bear was causing a huge delay, so after getting a few pictures and listening to tourists yelling and swearing at each other, we survived the bear jam and made our way to Mammoth.
Just outside of Mammoth, our wishes were granted as we finally saw a bull elk chasing several cows over the small hills. A bachelor bull waited on the edge of the herd and snuggled up to any cow that tried slipping away from the herd. We were hoping for a battle between the two bulls, but none materialized. In Mammoth, another bull had a captive herd of cows in the shade of two buildings.
After eating a late afternoon lunch, it was time to make the long drive back to Rexburg, but when we got to the Madison River, we found a few antlerless elk lounging in the river – staying cool from the hot weather. We finally saw a small bull, but it was also more interested in staying cool than chasing the cows.
For a family outing it was mostly what we wanted to do – enjoy each other and see some great scenic vistas and some animals. The weather has cooled, so another outing is being called for – another chance to look for some excitement. Most of the park is scheduled to close on October 15, allowing another visit to Yellowstone.
