Music • Photography • Writing
National Parks Of The American Rockies
Yellowstone
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Not all of the changes in Yellowstone are natural. At left is a picture of Fishing Bridge, which for decades held a thicket of fishing poles, the park visitors hoping to snag one of the native brown trout spawning in the headwaters of the Yellowstone River. But park officials eventually realized that not enough fish were completing the spawning, meaning the fish populations plummeted. As the fish disappeared, so did the native white pelicans which feed on them.
Now, despite the irony, fishing is no longer allowed from Fishing Bridge. But the fish, and the pelicans, have returned. The one pictured here fished one particular stretch of the river downstream from the bridge. It would fly upstream, land in the water, and float downstream while looking for fish, repeating the whole process time and again.
This doesn't look like much of a picture, but it sure looks good to me. That little black spot in the center is actually a black bear. And this is the perfect way to see one: from a distance. When I was a kid, my folks brought me to the park and we saw over 60 bears, many of which would approach the cars and beg for hand-outs. Unfortunately, many people got hurt and many of the bears had to be destroyed.
Now, of course, visitors are forbidden by law from feeding any of the park's animals. (At least, most animals. After all, one never really hikes alone. There's always that familiar whine beside your ear, followed by a slapping sound. Skeeters are as unavoidable as death and taxes, and a lot more frequent. And it's only the females who go after you, seeking the proteins in your blood they need in order to produce eggs and launch another season of misery for hikers. And after the blood-suckers are satisfied, they immediately fly the scene, leaving you irritated and with an itch that you just can't quite scratch. And still you keep coming back. . .But I digress.) Anyway, watch out for the bears.
Not all the wildlife is so irksome. This bull elk peacefully munches the lush foliage all around, storing up essential fat reserves to survive the long hard winters. But visitors often don't realize how dangerous these vegetarians can be. When they are in rut, the bulls become almost deranged and can charge for no reason and with no warning.
The poster child of these dangerous vegetarians is the bison, which accounts for most of the animal-caused injuries in the parks of the West. For some reason, tourists seem to think these wild animals are as placid and harmless as cattle, while they're actually very powerful, fast, fearless creatures. This big bull steams as an early July frost melts in the warm morning sun.
