Yellowstone Park Foundation Meetings

Sorry for the delay in updating this blog. Busy, busy, busy...

So, on May 14th, I flew into Bozeman for a few days of meetings with the Yellowstone Park Foundation (YPF) at Mammoth Hot Springs Hotel in the park. I have been nominated this year (and Laurie next year we think) to be on the Advisory Council for the Foundation. There are 50 people on the Council and, after serving for one or more three-year terms, one may be nominated to be on the Board of Directors (24 people). The Board and Council work with the YPF Staff and Yellowstone National Park Staff to determine what projects are appropriate for funding in the park.

The park receives money every year from the federal government but most of this funding goes toward the basic operations of the park. The YPF supplements this funding to allow the park to improve the visitor experience and help protect and preserve the park more completely. I'm really amazed at the wide range of projects that have been funded so far including the ongoing and high-profile Wolf Project, a wolverine conservation study, campground and landscape rehabilitation project, restoration and rehabilitation of trails, restoration of historic buildings and sites, archiving millions of objects and documents from Yellowstone's history, and fisheries research, to name a few. The big upcoming project that the Foundation helped raise money for is the Old Faithful Visitor Education Center. This building should be completed by the Fall of 2010 and will be a "green" building that will greatly improve the visitor experience at Old Faithful. It's hard to believe that it has taken this long to get such an educational display at Old Faithful. There will be much fanfare when this building is finally open!

Back to the meetings... Since Laurie was flying into Bozeman later that night from North Carolina, I hired a van to get to Mammoth. There was a brief orientation meeting for new members of the Board and Council and then a nice meet-n-greet dinner afterwards.

As fate would have it, Laurie's flight was delayed so she couldn't make it all the way to Mammoth that night but overnighted in Livingston, MT.

The next morning I woke up at 5 am (yes, it's true!) for an early morning wolf watch excursion that was guided by technicians who are working on the Wolf Project. Of course, there was a lot of other wildlife to see before we reached the Lamar Valley to the east. The usual suspects, including bison and elk, were putting on quite the show. Deep snow still exists in the higher elevations so they were still congregating in this lower elevation part of the park.

And the bears are out too! We saw two grizzly bears this morning, both within a hundred yards of the road. As we were at Slough (pronounced 'slew') Creek watching for wolves, we got a report from a ranger that a grizzly was headed our way (one of the perks of hanging out with people on the Wolf Project!). Sure enough, a couple minutes later a griz appeared over the horizon and trotted down the hill toward us. He gallivanted across the hills and ran after a few bison putting on quite a show for the large number of wolf watchers here. I snapped a few photographs and managed to get a couple decent shots. I felt like I was IN a PBS Nature show!

Grizzly Bear at Slough Creek

We watched the Slough wolf pack dens for about 1.5 hours or so but, surprisingly did not see any wolves. The scientists were surprised by this but hey, nature doesn't always work on a schedule. One of the technicians was even tracking the wolves using an antenna to try to receive a signal from one or more of the wolf collars in this pack. We could hear the signal from a collar but the wolf must have been in the den or out of sight.

Oh well, at least I learned quite a bit about the wolf packs in the area and it was a fun outing.

Early Morning Reflection in Slough Creek

After some late morning meetings back at the hotel, we drove off (Laurie was here now) for the unveiling of the new Artist Point at the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone. Laurie and I were honored to be driven there by the Deputy Superintendent of the park!! As we approached the turnoff for Artist Point, Laurie spotted a coyote and then a second one. They were very close to the road and looked very healthy, despite the difficult winter they just endured. THEN, literally 2 seconds later, we spotted a black WOLF!! He/she came within 50 yards of us and you really got a good sense of how much bigger they are than coyotes. WOW! What an experience! I took a few photos but none were very good I'm afraid.

Wolf near Canyon Village