International Wolf Center

Earlier this summer I spent a week up north photographing. I ended up staying a night in Ely, MN which is where the International Wolf Center is located. It had been years since Michelle and I had last visited the center so I decided to drop in to take some pictures. The International Wolf Center was founded in 1985 by a group of biologists. The purpose behind the organization is to advance the survival of wolf populations by teaching about wolves, their relationship to wild lands, and the human role in their future.

The 17,000 square-foot center building was built in 1993. From inside the center their are viewing windows into the 1.25 acre wolf enclosure. When I was at the center in July it was just Aiden and Denali in the main enclosure, the top photo is either Aiden or Denali. At that point the two new pups, Boltz and Luna, were not quite old enough to join the adults. They did bring them into a fenced in area inside the center so that we could get a peek, the bottom photo is of Luna. Since then Boltz and Luna have joined the Exhibit Pack. There are also a couple of secondary enclosure dens for retired wolves such as Grizzer, Malik, and Shadow.   Since I had a great time and since the International Wolf Center is such an important organization I decided to become a member and support this wonderful cause. If you would like more info on the International Wolf Center you can visit their website HERE!

Calendar Canids

 Our trip to Yellowstone last spring turned out to be a good one. We usually go at the end of May and in years that we have a late winter, like last year, we usually have a pretty good year photographing in the park. Maybe it is because in years where there is a late winter the mountains still have a lot of snow so the animals head down to the lower elevations of the park which are conveniently close to the roads.

We had the opportunity to photograph all three types of Canidae that can be found in the park. Two of these species made it into the 2012 calendar. Coyotes are fairly common in the park and usually not too difficult to see but the coyote in the first photo was one of the best looking coyotes that I have ever seen. We also managed to photograph several different wolves. I featured this wolf a couple of weeks ago to help bring some attention to the plight of wolves now that many have been delisted from the endangered species act. If you care about wolves and our environment you might want to take another look.

Threatened Wolves.

Things look pretty bleak for one of the few large predators left in the United States, the gray wolf. Despite the fact that the number of gray wolves in the us is under 10,000 the federal government has taken the wolf off of the endangered species list. The wolf became unprotected in Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan earlier this year. Now here in Minnesota the right wing tea bagger congress is already trying to pass legislation for hunting the wolf. Typically once a species leaves the endangered species list hunting is not allowed for years so that scientists and environmentalists can study the effects of taking them from the list. Out west things are even worse for the wolves. They are in the process of removing protections in Idaho, Wyoming and Montana. In much of this area the wolf will be considered a predator and can be shot on site with out a permit or season. This means that the wolf populations that were carefully reintroduced in Yellowstone, like the one above, are a risk of being shot if they step a paw outside of the park. If you would like to help stop the senseless slaughter of wolves in Minnesota please visit this website http://www.howlingforwolves.org/

Yellowstone Part 1

Since Yellowstone is such a big place, and since we ended up taking many pictures over vacation I have decided to post pics from the vacation primarily in three posts. This first post will cover the first couple of days. We did most of our driving to the park on Friday. Thirteen hours of driving got us to Billing, MT where we stayed the night. Saturday we got up and drove the last three hours to the park. We were not in too much of a hurry because of the gray rainy skies. The weather forecast had rain every day for the entire week and my mood was as gloomy as the skies. I had a bad feeling that this vacation was going to end up as a train wreck. Looking back I was kind of right but not in the way in which I was thinking
We arrived at the north entrance of the park around 10:00am and headed right out towards the Lamar Valley. As we came to the bridge into the Little America area there were many cars parked on the side of the road so we stopped to see what everyone was looking at. Down the slope near the river a black bear was munching on the grass. I took a few pictures and then heard someone mention that there were male big horn sheep a bit further down the road.
Since we think that big horned sheep rams are more interesting then a black bear trimming the lawn, that is probably because we have a good population of black bear in Minnesota and absolutely no wild big horned sheep, I ran back to the car and we moved down the road. We found about a dozen or so rams with a few female and young ones mixed in. We have seen big horn rams in the park before but never so many in one group. We watched and photographed their behavior, including some head butting, for a while and then decided to continue on, since we still had not been to our motel yet.
On our way back around the park, the road between Canyon and Tower does not open up until Memorial Day weekend or later because of all the snow in the mount Washburn pass, we spotted a wolf running parallel to the road between Mammoth and Norris. I pulled over grabbed the camera jumped out of the car and began to follow and photograph the wolf. About two miles later the wolf met up with another wolf, I found out that the other wolf had been a couple of hundred feet ahead of the one that I was following, and the two shortly disappeared into the trees. Fortunately for me Michelle picked me up with the car because I was not looking forward to running another couple of miles to get back. With all of that running after the wolves I slept pretty soundly that night.
We started out back into the park early the next morning. The skies had cleared as the day progressed on Saturday and the nice weather continued on Sunday morning. I had talked with several photographers on Saturday and found that many people had been seeing grizzly over by Yellowstone Lake so we headed over through Canyon on our way to Fishing Bridge. On our way we found another jam up of cars so we decided to stop and find out what was going on. It was another bear, but this time it was a grizzly and it was eating at a carcass. I made my way through the trees and snow to where I could photograph the bear from across the river. I found out later that the bear had been eating on the carcass for days, though I am not sure that the bear killed the bison or whether it had just found a convenient meal. We continued to check the carcass for the rest of the trip but I guess that there was not enough meat left to entice another bear.
At Yellowstone Lake we did find another grizzly but it was kind of far away and sleeping so after waiting a bit we decided to continue south on the loop and hook around to Old faithful. We usually do not see that much on the south end of the park, this could be because it is a bit higher elevation, but as we turned the corner and began going north again we were treated to an osprey perched on a tree over looking the Firehole River.
After the osprey took off in the opposite direction in search of a fish we continued north. When we got to Mammoth I decided to check out the North Entrance before heading back out towards Tower and Lamar Valley. I was primarily looking for golden eagle, since we did see them nest in the area a few years back, but the only thing that we found was a female big horned sheep hugging the cliff wall far above the road. I thought that it would be cool to get a picture of the sheep in its natural habitat so we stopped to take a pic and that's when I noticed a small lamb clinging to mom's side. We found out later that the lamb was only hours old when we took this pic.After a few minutes the ewe and her lamb laid down to get some rest and it was very difficult to so the lamb so we decided to move on back into the park. On our way into Mammoth we spotted this mule deer on a hill overlooking the road. Normally I do not spend much time photographing deer but since the sun was on its way down the light was very good. With no place to pull over I jumped out of the car and snapped a couple of quick pics before any cars came up behind us.
With night approaching we decide to start heading back towards West Yellowstone. As we drove between Mammoth and Norris I saw something moving in water near the road and so I stopped. We had seen beaver here in the past, including the day before, but usually they were much further away. This one was munching on a twig pretty close to the road. The only problem was that the setting sun made the lighting tricky.
A little further down the road from the beaver we ran into the same wolf that we had photographed the day before. This time it was heading south towards Norris. Again I grabbed the camera and jumped out of the car. This time the wolf kept to the road, which was unfortunate because people were chasing it down the road in their car. On several occasions people came close to hitting another car or the wolf as they tried to race ahead to catch up to or get a head of the wolf. I kept following on foot for several miles until it was getting dark. Finally Michelle was able to catch up to me with the car and we decided to leave the wolf in peace and head back to our hotel. Even though it had rained on both days we also had periods of blue sky and after only two days I know that my fears about this vacation had been proven wrong, at least as far as the shooting opportunities were concerned.

Photofriday: My Best Nature Photo Moment of 2008

For this weeks Photofriday challenge the subject is "Best of 2008". At first I thought that this would be a tough choice, considering that I had a great year photographing nature. There were so many great moments to choose from, like photographing endangered whooping cranes at Necedah, burring owls in South Dakota, the harlequin duck at Prescott, WI, The endangered Karner blue butterfly at Necedah, calico pennant dragonfly at Sax Zim Bog, just to name a few. But in the end the choice was simple.
In 2008 we had our first opportunity to photograph wolves in the wild and it was the thrill of the year.

This was our 8th trip to Yellowstone, in 8 years, and we had photographed almost everything that you can usually find in Yellowstone.

But the wolves had alluded us, at least until our 2008 trip in May.

I was afraid that we had missed our opportunity again when we heard through the Yellowstone grape vine that 3 wolves had taken down an elk near the Lamar Valley while we were on the other side of the park. When we got to the Lamar area we found a group of photographers camped out by the remains of the kill. We decided to stay and see if the wolves would return. Several hours later, at almost dusk, this one wolf returned to work a bit more on the carcass.

We were thrilled to have our first wolf pics. In other years we had seen wolves in Yellowstone but only through scopes and way to far to get any descent pictures.

Two days later we heard about a small group of wolves that had been spotted running near the road over by Swan Lake Flatts. Unfortunately that was the day that a tree fell, almost hitting our car, and was blocking the road. By the time the tree was cleared from the road the wolves had vanished.

As we drove through the Swan Lake Flatts area the following evening, on our way back to our hotel in West Yellowstone, Michelle spotted this lone black wolf running parallel to the road.

We pulled into the nearest pull off and I got out to see if I could get some pics. Just about then the wolf emerged from a row of small pines and to the edge of the road only about 8 feet away from me. He was so close that I had to take off my converter to be able to get ahead shot. He looked at me with a little curiosity and I looked at him with a great respect and I know that this was a very special moment in my life.

Protect our Wolves

With all of the bad news that we have been getting lately, Iraq, the bank failures, global warming, hurricanes and more, I am happy to report a bit of good news for a change. On September 23 the Us District Court in Washington overturned the Bush administration's decision to remove the gray wolf from the endangered species list in the western Great Lakes region.
It seems that the Fish and Wildlife Service under the Bush administration tried to classify wolves in the Great Lakes as a distinct populations segment that could be removed from the protection of the Endangered Species Act with out consideration of the wolf population as a whole. Since the wolves were no longer protected officials in Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan had the ability to permit the hunting or trapping of wolves, although none of the states had yet done so, and to issue permits for people to kill wolves that they claim were attacking their livestock. Killing livestock is the typical argument that people use against wolves but in most cases they try and stay away from areas where there are people and there are government programs that pay people for livestock loses that they can prove are because of wolves. So for now the wolves are protected again but the debate is not over. While the judge put the wolves back on the Endangered Species List it is only temporary while he gives the Fish and Wildlife Service time to provide a better explanation of their interpretation of the law and address concerns about the effect on the wolf population as a whole.
It is estimated that there are close to 3000 wolves in Minnesota but in the 45 years that I have lived here I have never seen one in the State. I have also never seen one in Wisconsin and I live only 15 minutes from that state. The only wolves that I have ever seen in the wild were in Alaska, we saw 2 in Denali, and the ones in the pictures above which I photographed in Yellowstone earlier this year. They are beautiful creatures that need and deserve our protection.

Surreal Moments in Yellowstone

This years Yellowstone had two of the most surreal moments that we have ever experienced in Yellowstone. The first one took place on Wednesday afternoon as we were driving between Norris and Mammoth. The roads in this area are lined with trees as you can see in the photo below.
Michelle was napping in the passenger seat and I was scanning the sides of the road for wildlife as I was driving along. As I scanned the road I suddenly noticed movement on the passenger side. As I looked a tree on the side of the road began to fall. I slammed on the breaks waking Michelle up and giving my lens hood a little bump against the dash, Michelle was holding the camera.
The tree ended up in the road right in front of the car. If I had not spotted it falling and taken the actions that I did it would have landed squarely on our car which would have been very bad. Since the tree was now blocking the whole road we were stuck. Several other cars pulled up shortly and we tried to move the downed tree but it stuck between two others. Fortunately a park services truck showed up a few minutes later, they happened to be traveling the same road and were unaware of the issue, and they took their axe and cut the tree into a couple of pieces which we helped to move to the side of the road, which you can see above. I should have taken a pic while the tree was in the road but I was still in a bit of a shock. As you can see below the tree was not huge but it was big enough to do some damage to the car as well as Michelle and I.
After the tree incident we only went to Mammoth before we decided to call it a day and head back to the motel. The next day while we were out in the park we found out from some other photographers in the park that while we were held up by the fallen tree there had been a grizzly and three wolves further down the road that we were driving on. We were disappointed, especially with missing the wolves which had been quite close to the road from what we had heard. So on our way back to our hotel Thursday evening we decided to drive slow and keep an eye out to see if the wolves were still around. We were just about at Sheep Eater Cliff when Michelle spotted this lone black wolf running parallel to the road. We pulled over at the nearest pull out, which was a little bit ahead of where the wolf was running, and I got out to get some shots. The wolf slowly came through the trees and stopped about 10 feet away from me to check me out. It was unbelievable, about as exciting as when I released the eagle that I rescued earlier this year. He sat staring at me for about a minute then started on his way again. He walked along the road for a few feet and then crossed the road and took off into the trees. By the time that we spotted him again he was a long ways away by a small lake. Several others people stopped to see him but most people did not get the experience that I just had. Here are the pics that I took.

This was the highlight of our trip and one of our most exciting moments in any of our 8 trips to Yellowstone. From the Yellowstone.net/forums I have found out that this is a young wolf that appears to be a loner, probably ejected from its pack. It has been photographed a few times this year mostly in the same are that we saw it. So if you are heading to Yellowstone this year keep your eyes open for this pup and maybe you can have one of those once in a lifetime moments like I did.

Unfortunately all good things have to come to an end and this is the last post that I have from this years Yellowstone trip. I am already planning next years trip but until that time i will try to keep you entertained and maybe a bit educated on flora and fauna that is a bit closer to my home in Minnesota.