Operation Lamar

Male elk start trying to kill each other over the affections of female elk around the last of August, with the mating-game peaking in mid September and tapering off in October. So! Why were several big bulls in Yellowstone crashing horns and shoving each other around and inflicting pain this last weekend? There wasn't a female within a mile.

Wolves are gregarious, family oriented animals. There have been packs of more than 20 observed in Yellowstone, and biologists believe there are more than that in the Swan Lake pack near Gardiner right now; but wolves practice population control and to keep order, constantly maintain a social system based on dominance and subordination. Is that why members of the Over the Hill Gang saw four wolves viciously attack a lone wolf who wanted to join them?

"Operation Lamar" this last week offered a wildlife watching smorgasbord to eight of us who went to Yellowstone for cross-country skiing and photography adventures. We've been doing this ever since "Operation Firehole" proved to be an unforgettable experience many years ago, even before the wolves were re-introduced in 1995.

I'm not going into the petty and often selfish politics involved in the wolf-elk-bison controversies currently raging. For this column let's just review a few of the interesting things we saw during three days of wandering between Blacktail Plateau and Soda Butte.

On Thursday afternoon Shannon and I found a man and woman parked on a hill two miles west of Roosevelt Junction. Asked them what they were doing. I always ask people what they are doing. The little lady said they were watching a pack of wolves resting on a plateau to the east and she immediately set up a powerful telescope for me. There they were, seven beautiful animals, two white, three black, two brown. The lady said she and her husband were wolf biologists for Algonquin Park in Canada and were doing a study on "howling," so I ask if she knew how to howl. "Sure," she said, "but I can't show you." She informed me we are only allowed to "listen" in Yellowstone because there is a rule against people howling at the wolves. Told her I was sorry, and drove on.

At Roosevelt Junction we could look back toward that plateau across a wide plain and there were about two hundred elk digging through the snow for food or just lying there, only a mile below the pack. Looked like a wolf smorgasbord to us.

Near Soda Butte there was a man with glasses looking up a steep hill. Asked him what he was doing. He said, "There are coyotes up there eating on a dead bull elk." Parked the car so Shannon could do video filming from the car and I shot with the telephoto over the top. The bull had died flat on his back with the horns jammed into the ground. Three coyotes were sorta taking turns going half way into the chest cavity to get some kind of inner goodies. Numerous magpies and ravens were hopping around the perimeter.

I later found out from a biologist the old bull's carcass had been examined and he was probably close to dying when killed by a mountain lion. The lion had been spooked away by too many tourists. On a later check of that scene we saw a bald eagle was sitting in a tree nearby but never came down while we were there.

The bulls were fighting early Saturday morning at a place we always see them along Blacktail Creek. They were close to a plowed out area at the trailhead so we could film within a hundred feet. Took three rolls and Shan got a half hour of video.

Another trip highlight occurred about 3:30 Saturday near the Yellowstone Institute's cabins on the Lamar. Shan and I had watched four wolves across the valley for quite awhile but the weather moved in and cut off our view so we left. Ivan O'Neil, Jim Galvin, Ray Kinney, and others came along a little later and the weather had lifted and the wolves came closer.

A fifth wolf came along and they chased him away, then settled down for a rest, but the stranger sneaked back and ended up in the middle of the small pack. They took after it, caught it and flipped it in the air on the run. They may have been trying to kill the stranger but it was able to break free and ran a high speed right up the road and across near where the guys were standing. "Unbelievable" was one of the words they used to describe the incident to me and Shannon during the evening debriefing.

I finally had to cut them off by saying. "I don't want to hear another damn word about it."