Pandemic Diaries - Year 2, Weeks #15 & #16

21 June 2021

 

We're currently in Bellingham, WA, but I wanted to catch up. 

 

When we were in Bozeman, Montana, we decided to spend most of one day at Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming.  The town just to the east of Bozeman, Livingstone, is right on US Highway 89, which runs south to Yellowstone.  (Not to confuse US-89, running from Montana to Arizona, with Interstate 89, or I-89, which is an east coast interstate highway.)

 

We drove south on US-89, enjoying the amazing views of mountains, plains, rivers.  Gorgeous.  Picture postcard perfect.  Seriously, the drive was through a beautiful part of the nation.

 

I like info signs in parks and at rest areas.  One rest area near a river had a sign with this info:

 

" The Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness, which lies to the east, contains one of the largest single expanses of land above 10,000 feet in elevation in the United States.  The US Forest Service set aside portions of the region as primitive areas in 1932, and Congress voted it a wilderness area in 1978.  Visitors spent 392,000 collective days here in 1983, making it the fourth most visited wilderness in America at that time.

"Artifacts and pictographs indicate that people have hunted in these mountains for thousands of years, but it has always been country for people to visit, not live in.  Reserved by treaty for the Crow in 1851, the tribe shared with the less-rugged mountains on the west side of the wilderness their name for themselves, Absaroka.

"The entire wilderness is a watershed for the Yellowstone, the longest undammed river left in the United States.  It flows over 670 miles from its sources out of Yellowstone National Park and is the lifeblood of about one-third of Montana and much of northern Wyoming."

 

Our drive zigzagged over and parelleled the Yellowstone River, and we entered the national park just beyond the town of Gardiner.  We continued on south and then headed east along the northern road - this isn't part of the usual loop that most people drive, but we wanted to head to the Lamar River and Lamar Valley.  The Lamar River is one of many tributaries of the Yellowstone River, and the valley surrounding the river is supposed to be one of the best areas to see wildlife in the park.

 

We arrived in mid-afternoon, knowing that many visitors arrive in the morning when the animals are more active.  Many of the animals are also active in the later afternoon, especially the wolves who are more nocturnal.  And all those morning people are usually gone by the afternoon, making the park a little less crowded.

 

Mostly, I wanted to see bison.  In their natural environment, wild and free, not cooped up in some zoo cage.  Bison are truly magnificent animals, with that huge head (which they use as a plough to move snow out of their way), the horns, the fur - and, it turns out, with very expressive eyes and long flirty eyelashes!

 

These really are bison.  Buffaloes live in Africa and Asia, and have long horns that project sideways, growing vaguely parallel to the ground.  Bison horns are short, narrower, and point up to the sky.  Buffaloes are built more like steer and oxen; bison have huge heads and a hump on their back.  Buffaloes have short even fur; bison have long shaggy fur on their head, shoulders, front legs, helping them survive the long cold winters of their native habitat.  

But the French explorers called the bisons "les boeufs" meaning "the steers" or "the oxen."  Non-French explorers (the English) pronounced this as "la buff" and began calling the animals buffles which turned into bufflers which eventually became buffillos.  And yes, then buffaloes.  A total misnomer, but most of us grew up singing Home on the Range, with roaming buffaloes.  We were wrong, but roaming bisons doesn't fit the melody.  For more information about the difference between buffalo and bison, here's the link to a helpful website:  https://thehonestbison.com/bison-or-buffalo-2/

Anyway, we drove along, slowing for traffic - which of course slowed and stopped for every animal.  We saw a black bear and her cub, from a very safe distance.  One crowd reported there was a moose, but we opted not to hike in and join the viewers.

And along the way, bison!  Occasional single bison, just hanging out, munching grass, drinking water.  Then larger and larger groups of bison, also hanging out, munching grass, drinking water.  We kept our distance, they ignored us.  Cars kept their distance, the bison ignored them.

However, a few bison decided the grass was greener on the other side of the road.  Or maybe the water was cleaner.  One bison would lumber up the hill to the road.  A few steps, and he'd step into the lane and wait.  We have no idea why every bison would step into the road and wait, but they did.  Cars would drive up and stop, because bison have the right of way.  But some of the bison would stand there a full five minutes, just waiting.  Maybe this is some bison game.  Or revenge for the slaughter of bison until they were an endangered species.  Or, well, maybe they just think slowly.  We have no idea, but it was almost like a game of dare, with the bison blocking traffic, just daring some vehicle to try to pass around him.  (One did, and of course all of us watching thought the bison should charge and overturn that vehicle for being so rude.)

Eventually, each bison would finally cross the road, and clamber down on the other side.  Another five or ten minutes would pass, then a second bison would lumber up, block traffic, and repeat the game.

It really was glorious to just stand and watch them!

One of our burning questions was why is their fur such a patchy mess?  I had to look this up.  Bison have dark fur all over, with the longer and shaggier fur on the front half of their bodies.  Most of their fur molts in late spring and summer, so they get a patchy look - some of the longer winter fur comes off naturally, but some needs to be brushed against trees and bushes.  The darker colored fur is the new fur, while the lighter colored fur is older, bleached a bit by the sun.

As we drove farther along the Lamar Valley, we saw bigger and bigger herds of bison, including the calves - they're almost an orangey color, sort of a bright terra cotta color like some clay flowerpots.  Definitely smaller as well, so it was pretty obvious that they were the babies.  

None of the bison seemed threatened by the cars or the people watching them, and none of them threatened us.  Even when we drove by a bison who was on the side of the road, and stopped so I could take a photo and talk to them, none of the bisons seemed to mind.  We definitely kept our distance, but a few bisons looked me straight in the eye as I talked to them.  (That's when I noticed the flirty and long eyelashes.)  The didn't seem to mind the stopped car, or the woman telling them how wonderful they were.  (On the other hand, maybe they like being told how magnificent they are.)

It really was a wonderful day!  Amazing weather, gorgeous scenery, and probably half the bison population of Yellowstone out and grazing in the valley.  At this point in time, it is estimated that there are close to 5,000 bison in Yellowstone (actually 4,800 or so) - and I think we must have seen between 1,000 and 2,000 of them!

We saw other animals too - an oddly colored fox, sort of a patchy grey and white color, watching cars drive by.  (Online research says this is a common genetic variant of a basic red fox.)  A badger coming out of a hole.  A raccoon looking around.  Several pronghorn antelope grazing and resting by a small lake.  A bald eagle flying overhead.  Ground squirrels pretending to be meerkats, standing outside their burrows and keeping an eye on the humans.  

But the bison really were the stars of the park, at least to me.

 

We didn't get to the northeast entrance near Silver Gate and Cooke City, but we were close.  By then it was early evening, so we turned around and drove back.  At the visitor center, we saw park rangers either herding up the elk, or forcing them to move out of the road and away from people - I have no idea, but two rangers were literally cracking whips to scare the elk away from the roads.  They were just using the whips to make noise, and weren't even close to the elk - but it did force the elk to run back toward the trees.  It reminded me of what the guide told us when we were at the Grand Canyon - elk have figured out that they are safer around human activity, since the predators they worry about, mountain lions and wolves, avoid humans.  So I think maybe the elk in Yellowstone congregate around the visitor center to not be chased and eaten by the wolves or bears.  

We also saw elk on our drive back to Bozeman, but managed not to hit any.  Whew.  That would not be a good way to end a wonderful day.

If you're curious about the size of bisons, just a few statistics:  Adult male bison (bulls) stand about 6.5 feet, or 2 meters in height, and around up to 12 feet (3.7 m) long; the males weigh roughly 2,000 pounds, or about 900 kg.  Adult females (cows) are shorter, more like 5 feet or so tall (1.6 m) and weigh about 800 to 1100 pounds (360 to 500 kg).  Newborn bison weigh somewhere around 30 to 70 lbs (or 14 to 30 kg).  

 

The huge hump across the bison's shoulders rises about 1 foot (30 cm) or more above the top of their head!  This hump prevents them from rolling over, it's so huge!

 

Bison have no front teeth, and actually use their tongues to pull out grasses and small plants which they chew with their back teeth.  (Who knew?)

 

Bison are native to North America, and are the continent's largest mammal.  There is a European bison, also known as the wisent, that is similar, though not as shaggy.  

 

So, obviously tons of bison photos.  A few bear photos.  One running elk photo.