Change in the Tetons – YELLOWSTONE'S WILD WORLD

We recently went to the Tetons for 10 days. The main reason we were there was to attend the Jackson Hole Wildlife Film Festival. But we still found plenty of time to look for things to photograph. We got to the Tetons just as the foliage was beginning to peak. It didn’t last long, and this wasn’t the best year, but it was still beautiful.

We have been visiting the Tetons for 41 years. It is amazing how some things have changed during that time. Forty one years ago Jackson was a small tourist town where we could have afforded to buy land, if we had had the sense to do it. Now the billionaires are crowding out the millionaires and we can barely afford to eat out in town.

The park has changed too. There were several small lakes south and east of Jackson Lake Lodge where you could always find swans. Now not only are the swans gone, the lakes are gone as well. That makes me feel old.

We spent a good bit of time the first couple of days at the Gros Ventre Campground looking for moose in rut. The weather was still pretty warm for late September so the moose spent a lot of time sleeping during the day. Every once in a while we caught one moving around, but it wasn’t very often.

Female Moose Eating "Moose Muck" — Female Moose Eating “Moose Muck”

Female Moose Being Closely Followed by a Male Moose

One of our favorite spots in the Tetons is Schwabacher’s Landing. It is on a channel of the Snake River. When we first visited it 41 years ago there was a channel connected to the Snake River and people put boats in and out of the water to fish and float the Snake. Over the last 40 years that has changed and no one can put a boat in there because there is very little water in that channel. In fact the area where boats actually put in and got out is now part of the parking area.

The Reflection of the Tetons at Schwabacher's Landing. — The Reflection of the Tetons at Schwabacher’s Landing.

One reason we like Schwabacher’s is because of the beavers who live there. When we first went there 41 years ago they had a big wide, long dam that we walked on with our students to get to the Snake River. That dam has been gone for a long time. Over the years beavers have come and gone at Schwbacker’s. They eat willows and aspens and occasionally eat themselves out of a home. But they are there in force now. They have at least 4 dams and several of them are fairly substantial in size. You can see them on the satellite images on Google Maps.

An Adult Beaver Going Down One of the Dams

An Adult Beaver With It's Aspen Dinner — An Adult Beaver With It’s Aspen Dinner

I never got what I felt was an accurate count of the beavers this year but I know there were at least 4 new babies and maybe 8 adults, some of which were probably yearlings. I think this year is the first time I have ever seen baby beavers. They were super cute. They were perfectly capable of diving down and getting their own lunch, vegetation on the bottom of the ponds, but some seemed to prefer begging or stealing from the adults. The following photo looks like the 2 beavers are kissing or something. Actually the younger one is begging for dinner.

Adult Beaver on the Left. Baby Beaver Begging on the Right

Baby Beaver Eating. I don't know why but the babies always eat with their tails up in the air. — Baby Beaver Eating. I don’t know why but the babies always eat with their tails up in the air.

Near the end of our time in the Tetons we found a male fox in the parking lot at Signal Mountain Lodge. He had learned that fishermen were not following the rules when they cleaned their fish. They threw them out on the grass and the fox knew where to find them. He had a beautiful tail, but looked a little small, so we think he was born this year.