Spring Goodbyes

Adios!

The season’s end has been lurking for several weeks, and is now pouncing on us, like a coyote on a pocket gopher’s final moments of life.  It is honestly depressing to me to think that my time in Yellowstone is coming to a close.  Our final week has been quite anti-climactic (hardly any wolves, no bears, a pitiful amount of bison, and a tiny elk population), but I still don’t want to leave.  I’m worried that I might injure Megan and Greg when they pull me kicking and screaming from the park entrance, if they can even get me that far.  

I feel that I have gained more from this job than I did from studying five years of ecology in college (but I wouldn’t have this job without the college part!).  I have developed a much deeper understanding and appreciation of the complex interactions that take place not only in Yellowstone, but everywhere on earth at every moment.  The human element in the world, although with a relatively huge impact on ecosystems, is only a small part of the colossal amount of interactions and processes that are occurring constantly.  They are relentless forces, powering life, death, and everything in between.

Megan found the first newborn bison calf of the season at Norris Junction.  Several days later, the Canyon pack had killed and nearly completely consumed it.  I held its tiny hooves in my hand and pondered life, death, and everything in between.   

I would like to sincerely thank all of you for reading my blog for this season.  I am extremely surprised at the number of folks that are, at the very least, taking a peek now and then.  It warms my heart to know that there are so many of you that are taking an interest not just in my adventures, but in the natural world.  I hope that at least some of my posts were revealing, and if not that, then gaspingly, intriguingly gory.

I’m afraid I may lose some of my readers this summer as I start my much less-glamorous job of searching for and monitoring nests of prairie falcons, northern goshawks, ferruginous hawks, and flammulated owls in South Central Idaho (for the Idaho Bird Observatory).  But I hope not, because, even in the sagebrush deserts and dry mountain forests, there are fascinating ecological stories unraveling.  And I’m sure I will have a few adventures of my own.

Cheers to Yellowstone…

Jesse DeVoe


Wolf sightings per day rate: 1.06
Total wolf sightings: 176

Grizzly bear sightings: 11
Bobcat sightings: 6
Flying squirrel sightings: 1

Red Fox sightings: 8

Snowshoe Hare sightings: 5
Earthquakes felt: 4
Days in Yellowstone: 165