However, to get to the Beartooth, we had to drive all the way across Yellowstone NP, 98 miles of beauty along roads with a maximum speed of 45 mph, and often less.
There were other obstacles as well. The first 14 miles took almost 1 1/2 hours because we had to wait for the Park Rangers to move the Madison Valley Buffalo herd from one meadow to another (got to have them in the right place for the horde of tourists expected to swarm the park starting June 1, just like Disneyland!) and, of course, the easiest way to move them was right down our road.
When we finally got past that mess we made about 20 miles before finding some free ranging Buffaloes ambling along the road toward us. Of course, the people in the 10 cars in front of us had never seen a Buffalo before so they had to stop in the middle of the road and take pictures until the slow moving herd passed us. AARGH!!!!
To further slow our progress, we found a few distractions of our own:
A lazy Black Bear.
A not so lazy Black Bear.
Yet another Black Bear. Yep!, three for the day!
A bull Elk working hard at growing his antlers.
Same one, different angle.
And a stop to look for Mountain Goats up on the mountain. The tiny person is MMG!
Finally working our way to the Top of the World!
Not quite there yet!
AHHH! We can see forever!
So that's what the top of a mountain looks like.......
Anyone see Bev Doolittle around here?
Now we're headed back down the mountain.And a long the way home we met this handsome dude all decked out in his courting suit......
Blue GrouseFinally home. MMG wanted to share this sunset to close the day.
OTOH, I thought this newest addition to the locally world famous wildlife butt collection was more appropriate!
Blue Grouse strutting his stuff and headed for his Honey!Bye!
MMG and DDG
MMG and DDG
Just so you know, the bison you saw moved had nothing to do with getting bison in an area for tourists to see them. It had everything to do with the yearly forced hazing that the NPS and the Montana Department of Livestock do to keep wild buffalo out of Montana. The previous year, the Park Service had a hand in the largest slaughter of wild buffalo since the 19th century. This year, they didn't kill any deliberately, but they were involved in the process that forces buffalo out of Montana despite the wishes of the local populace (not to mention the desire of bison to migrate into public lands outside the imaginary boundary of the park). This year, at least four calves broke legs as a result of hazing operations. Montana livestock agents flew helicopters in the park as low as 20 feet to run buffalo out of Montana.
ReplyDeleteThe bison from Madison toward Old Faithful, the NPS claims, was to make room for all the bison that were being moved from Montana (like a domino). A lot of groups strongly oppose the hazing and slaughter of supposedly wild buffalo.
The reason they are forced out of Montana is complicated; the gist of it is that the Montana livestock industry doesn't want to compete for grass with bison, even in areas there are no cows. They claim that the disease bison have, brucellosis (acquired by bison from cows in Yellowstone many decades ago), can hurt their industry. For a lot of reasons, this claim is nonsensical. For instance, the bison you didn't see in Montana being forced into the park are calving on a peninsula where there are no cows at any time of the year. Locals want them, but they are forced back nonetheless.
It's important for the truth to get out there; Yellowstone is my favorite place in the world. Unfortunately, there's a lot of bad politics there, and the bison are caught in the crosshairs.
Sincerely,
Jim Macdonald