Yesterday morning we stopped at Hellroaring Overlook because there were clouds down below us. I did a time lapse that turned out pretty good and Verne took some photos he converted to black and white images. I really liked his photos so I wanted to show them to you.
In the evening we ended out at Footbridge Pullout. As I was going down the hill towards the bridge a man stopped me and asked if I had seen any wolves. I told him what I knew and then he asked me if I was for the wolves or against them. I said “for them of course.” He said he was too and that he couldn’t understand who would be against them. I told him most ranchers were against them. He asked why ranchers would be against wolves that live in a national park. I told him the wolves aren’t aware of the invisible boundary lines of the park and some step outside those boundaries and get shot. That had never occurred to him, that the wolves would wander outside the park. Afterwards it got me to thinking about how many people are totally out of touch with what goes on in what is left of our natural world. I worry all of the time about the number of wolves who are being shot and killed every year and it never crosses some people’s mind. I truly believe if everyone understood wolves we would have total protection for them.
After we discussed wolves he then asked me if I was going to film them. I told him I was after a beaver. He said he didn’t know beavers were in the creek (Soda Butte Creek). I told him that 20 years ago there weren’t any beavers in all of the Lamar Valley and asked him to guess why they had returned. (Sometimes the biology teacher in me can’t be repressed.) He thought for a while and then asked me to tell him. I told him the beavers were back because wolves had been reintroduced to Yellowstone in 1995. He couldn’t figure out the connection. Twenty years ago the Lamar Valley had almost no baby aspens, cottonwoods or willows because the elk spent so much time in the valley floor eating those trees. Now the wolves are back and the elk have discovered the trees up higher in the valley provide better cover from the wolves. The wolves are back, the elk aren’t as common on the valley floor, and now the cottonwoods and willows are coming back, therefore the beavers have something to eat. Not only that Soda Butte Creek and the Lamar River have more vegetation growing on their edges so there is less soil erosion. Connections are an amazing thing. Everything IS connected to everything else. We sometimes just have trouble seeing those connections.
Open your heart to all of the wonderful organisms around you and your eyes will see more than they ever have before.
