This
Month in Yellowstone
Wolves at a Carcass
At about 10:30 a.m. on May 23, 2004 MacNeil Lyons (Formal
Education Park Ranger) was driving toward the Northeast Entrance from
Roosevelt Junction. As he rounded the bend that opens into Round Prairie
he noticed that many cars had pulled off the road. He saw a carcass
in the river immediately, but didn't see any wildlife near it. As
he approached the crowd of people standing on the roadside, he noticed
that it was unusually quiet. Responses to his whispered inquiries
taught him that four wolves had left the carcass just a few minutes
earlier.
Visitors who had been there since first
light said there were six wolves in the area at dawn. They had killed
the cow elk during the night and had stripped it of its meat prior
to MacNeil's arrival. As MacNeil continued to talk with the visitors,
three wolves came back out in the open. For the most part they stayed
on the far bank above the carcass but the large, gray male, that MacNeil
recognized as the alpha male of the Druid Peak Pack, went down to
the carcass one last time to strip a little more meat from its ribs.
More information about wolves
in Yellowstone is available online.
Click a thumbnail to
see a larger image.
      
Photos
© 2004 MacNeil Lyons - Click a thumbnail to see a larger image
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