Yellowstone Wildlife: The Secret for (safe) Sightings

The entire post is about the wildlife seen in Yellowstone in two days. It is spectacular to see, wild animals in their natural habitat, free to roam without (much) fear.

Quite honestly the human behavior is what can ruin the entire experience. We were in an hour and a half traffic backup because there were bison along the road and everyone stopped in the middle of the road to take pictures. What makes it crazier, is that some people got out of their cars, oblivious that these majestic animals can run. Fast. They can get up to speeds of 35MPH if motivated all 2,000 lbs. of them.

So while we are so happy we saw some beautiful wildlife, we tried our best to view them sensibly and safely.

The best time to see wildlife is in the early evening. They come out of the cool in the trees to eat and walk around. The good news about that time is that there are less people in the park.

There were two bull elk just enjoying a bit of dinner off of the side of the road. Fortunately, there were pullouts so we could safely view them. I was impressed how quiet everyone was, just taking pictures. Fortunately my trusty iPhone has a great zoom lens, as I was not as close as it would seem. These guys can get up to 40 MPH. While they most likely would be running away from humans, I would not want to get in the way of those horns.

A herd of elk, just enjoying dinner in a meadow. This actually seemed staged (it was not) as there were huge pullouts along this part of the road so cars could safely pull over.

Thanks to conservation efforts, it is estimated there are now 30,000-40,000 elk in Yellowstone & Grand Tetons. They, were by far, the animal we saw the most of.

The elk in the Mammoth Hot Springs area, definelty know they have the right of way. This was about 5PM and the elk came down out of the hills to just casually cross the street. They enjoyed their dinner on the park ranger’s beautiful lawn.

Mamas and Babies making their way across the street. It was good, again in this case to see people staying back and letting the elk go about their business.

But not all the elk felt comfortable. These two, both seemingly younger, got left behind on the hill while all the others went down across the street. They howled in what sounded like a higher pitched sick cow type of moo. They were not happy to have been left behind!

After an early dinner we headed back into the North Entrance of the park. As we were driving up the mountain I spotted a Big Horn Sheep. They are really rare to see, so we felt fortunate. And, there were very few people around and a great place to pull out. So we got out and snapped a few pics.

Do you see the mother and baby below?

Look at this young big horn sheep who’s molting, getting a drink in the river.

There are only abut 250 big horn sheep in this part of the park. We counted a dozen in all including 3 babies and 2 rams.

This video gives a better perspective of the Big Horn Sheep running along the hillside.

This elk seemed to be posing for us to say goodbye! The elk just stood there in the sunset for a long time.

Seeing this wildlife was a highlight. We did not see a bear at all. We spoke to a ranger who’d had run into a Grizzly the previous week. She just put her hand on her bear spray and backed away she said.

We did see a huge wolf that ran right out in front of us in the road one late morning. It had a raccoon in it’s mouth. We could not stop and it ran off too fast to get a picture of.

There is a lot of wildlife to see, safely; you just have to keep you eyes open!