Finalizing Our Report

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Over the last few days we have been sharing items from our semi-annual inspection report of Yellowstone National Park. Every year we have made the arduous journey from The Institute compound, I mean campus, to our favorite national park to provide the public at large a comprehensive overview of the conditions and state of the various park elements. This year was no different. We worked hard to cover every line item on our report, no matter how small or large it appeared to be, we were up at the crack of noon, trudging into the park with all of gear, sometimes doing with only three or four cups of tea and a huge but hearty breakfast, to get everything done that we needed to do that day.

As noted in our opening post the park passed its inspection with flying colors, but as in every year we have produced this report, the park has been noticeably different each year. Some years, it is the year of the wolf, where you find yourself tripping over them as they scramble to be included in every picture. Some years It is the year of the bison where they deliberately have calves in plain sight, right in front of you, even though the park is rated G. Other years it is the year of the bear, that was this year with the bears so plentiful, some were being excluded from the many pictures taken because they weren’t deemed attractive enough by the more discerning viewer, who wanted only the most photogenic bears in their view finders. I know that seems unfair, but life is unfair, and often unkind.

This year the overall atmosphere of the park was, the year it rained forever. It rained everyday, sometimes three or four times at once. It was hard on our equipment, hard on our interns who had to sleep under the Mothership due to them smelling like the dumpster out behind our favorite Italian restaurant, hard on our ability to stay focused and get our work done. Hard to figure out a way of presenting this in a way that would engender sympathy for us doing a job that most folks would kill for, and whining about a little rain. Well quite a bit of rain actually, but even so.

But in many ways it was amazing. The weather in the park although volatile, is usually incredible. Bright blue skies, huge towering clouds, intense colors, incredible blooms of flowers everywhere you looked, everything approaching perfect nearly all the time. It was a  welcome change to see the park under different conditions. To see magnificent storms blow up in moments and have rain so heavy you couldn’t make out the buffalo herd standing twenty-five yards out in the meadows. Normally placid rivers became raging torrents of water, filling their banks, turning small waterfalls into Niagara’s, then just as suddenly stopping, leaving only the sound of raindrops falling from the trees. Places where the mist and fog changed into some kind of fairyland where sound was muffled and huge pine trees would suddenly loom out of the mist as you walked through the woods. It was different but magnificent.

It seems there is change in the park, but then that’s not surprising, seeing as how there is change in the world every where we look. The image above, taken along the Firehole  river as you traveled south towards Old Faithful, represents the endless changes in the conditions at the park this year. It is just clearing after a major downpour that had everyone pulling off the road as the windshield wipers couldn’t handle the amount of water falling. The sun is trying it hardest to break through the clouds, unsuccessfully this time, but long enough to get some of that late afternoon light to shine down on the herd as it grazed. The stark trees in the foreground add a melancholy look to the image but they are just symbols of the change happening every day here in the park. Tomorrow they’ll be gone but will be replaced by saplings that are sprouting around their roots. So will some of these buffalo grazing peacefully. Wolves, impossible winters, old age, all will take its toll but if you look closely you’ll see the bright orange of this years calves. They’ll be here next time, older, bigger, ready to take their place in the herd, filling in the spots that are vacant.

Although there has been a valiant attempt to show you the many different items on our inspection report we have been able to show you only a few of them. This is primarily due to space and time constraints, and partially due to the inability of The Director who will often start a project like this only to wander away and be found staring at a bug or something. Totally oblivious of his responsibilities as the chief creator of this report. But as in many other projects we have explored here at The Institute somehow it all gets done. You may be saying to yourselves ” Wait just a darn minute here. Does Yellowstone National Park really need to be inspected twice a year. Or are you just doing this because you get off on being up there, having fun, misplacing interns, watching animals, taking pictures, meeting new people, saying ‘Hey!” to those you already know, getting goose bumps while listening to the Lamar wolf pack howl. We want to know.” To that we can only answer “You figure it out, Einstein.”

Note : To those of you tuning in late the following posts will catch you up on preceding events. There is no extra charge for this service, it is included in the cost of admission. We know you don’t want to miss a minute of our fascinating but undocumented report.

http://www.bigshotsnow.com/the-words-out/

http://www.bigshotsnow.com/yellowstone-passes-inspection/

http://www.bigshotsnow.com/ghosts-in-the-darkness/

http://www.bigshotsnow.com/you-dont-see-that-every-day/

http://www.bigshotsnow.com/now-are-the-foxes/

http://www.bigshotsnow.com/into-each-park-some-rain-must-fall/

http://www.bigshotsnow.com/through-the-keyhole/

http://www.bigshotsnow.com/reflectivity/

http://www.bigshotsnow.com/resolvability/

http://www.bigshotsnow.com/terminal-cuteness/

Yellowstone Passes Inspection

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Those of you who follow the blog religiously or even non-religiously, know that we have just been on our bi-annual inspection trip of Yellowstone National park. We let you know of our plans to inspect the park in this posting http://www.bigshotsnow.com/the-words-out/ . Well we’re back and we are excited to announce that Yellowstone has passed its inspection with flying colors.

As mentioned before we went up there this year with a new research vessel, aptly named The Mothership, a newly commissioned, completely overhauled and refitted land yacht, large enough and strong enough to be able to tow our shuttle craft and haul the nearly eight dozen interns we intended to use as bait animal aggressiveness testing investigators. We had decided on a new strategy this trip which included dressing our interns up in various animal costumes, to mimic small prey and injured or helpless larger animals such as an elk calf with a damaged leg, etc. to see if the predator population in the park would act in an appropriate manner or not.

We have good news and bad news as to the success of that strategy. The good news was the predators acted in a completely predictable way when confronted with our bait animal aggressiveness testing investigators. The bad news is it resulted in a complete loss of every single one of our interns. That’s a great big oops on our part. We were hoping that at least a few of them would make it through the different testing situations but that was not to be the case. However we are able to completely verify that a wolf will always be a wolf and a bear will always be a bear.

After completing the section on our report titled “Predator population still aggressive in its pursuit of prey” we were able to check that item off as a yes and get on with the rest of the inspection. This resulted in The Director, who is of course me, having to handle a much larger work load than originally considered. (Note to self: Consider holding back some of the interns in the next inspection this fall to do all of the crap work required.) But as one who leads from the front we sucked it up and got on with all the remaining tasks involved in completing an inspection of a facility as large as Yellowstone National Park.

There are many, many areas to be checked to complete this task and over the following days we will attempt to show you the various areas and critical events which must take place to keep the park functioning at the level expected by the visiting public. Are the young being born on time? Are the thermal events turned on and operating properly? Are the predators doing their jobs? Well we can cross that one off now. We know the answer to that one. Are there the proper number of smaller activities being performed, birds doing bird stuff, plants situated in the most scenic areas, large overviews of the park like snow being on the peaks in the Lamar valley, rivers running up to their banks but not over, all the usual stuff the public doesn’t notice until it’s not there.

We can state at this time that park is functioning exactly as required. Our first function check, the one we do right before we release the interns, is to see if the Buffalo, especially the bulls, are placed strategically throughout the park and in the proper numbers. As our inspection of the park always begins through the West entrance of the park along the Madison river, it is imperative that a master bull, one of the better looking more regal appearing ones, be stationed just past Seven mile bridge, in the first major meadow but not too far from the road, so it can fulfill its duty as the official icon of the park. We checked that one off as done.

Watch this space for further reports on your very favorite national park. Tomorrow should bring something interesting.

Quiet Time

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Snowy day here at the Institute. Many of the staff, at least the ones that haven’t snuck off during the night, are beginning to agitate for their two-hour furlough on Christmas day. That’s when we let the select few who can prove citizenship leave for a couple of hours to visit loved ones, or their parole officers, their social workers, or whoever else is near and dear to their hearts.

We try to keep everyone busy during this time of year to keep their minds off disturbances like seeing wives or their newborn children, things that distract them from their responsibilities. Sometimes we run out of our regular work such as repaving the roads here on the compound. Try as we might you cannot pour and spread blacktop when it’s 2 degrees out there. We don’t dare send anymore crews out to cut firewood, we’ve denuded half the national forest as it is, and those Forest Service folks are getting suspicious. Cutting down acres of trees is a no-no, that’s real sacred cow stuff to those guys. Plus I think that some slackers on those crews try to deliberately get caught so they can go to jail rather than report back to work in the morning.

Anyway I thought I’d show a picture of our resident grizzly, Sarah, and her cub, Chip, out for a walk on the compound. Sarah is part of our security team here and its her responsibility to encourage those staff members, and it’s usually the younger interns who try to break and run before their 10 year commitment is done, to stay in their barracks, I mean living quarters, after dark. We have implemented a no biting above the second button on their shirts rule, but Sarah is an independent woman and will often modify our regulations to suit her own needs. Saying, No Sarah! and Bad Bear! just seems to delight her rather than curb her more violent behavior. Maybe it’s just that she’s a grizzly bear and will do what a grizzly bear does and we just have to live with it. Note to self: Put up picture of the foot we found near the razor wire on the interns bulletin board.

Well it’s time to get the crews busy. We started shoveling the snow out of the remaining forest so it looks neater and we can identify what further trees may need to be removed. Enjoy the day.

Couldn’t Sleep

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You ever have one of those winters when you just couldn’t sleep, you toss and turn and you look at the calendar and it’s only half past March and you normally sleep until May. Try as you might your eyes just won’t stay shut and there is nothing for it but to get up and wander around looking for the grass that isn’t up yet, hoping to find a dead buffalo to eat that the coyotes haven’t ruined, maybe run into some of your bear friends who couldn’t sleep either. It can be a miserable time. If you’re one of those innovative kind of guys you can always go nosing around the campgrounds looking for one of those soft-sided camper things to open up, the ones with the red and white plastic boxes full of supper, there’s always something to eat in there. After all it’s been since last fall that you’ve had anything to eat. Mostly though you find yourself just walking around, visiting all your old haunts waiting until somebody else wakes up to keep you company. This is the north end of Yellowstone lake near Mary Bay and its still winter here for awhile. Next year denning up in early December instead of the first of November will be a better idea. Plus no pizza before putting out the lights.

Gibbon Blues

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I had heard on the photographer’s telegraph (which is the rumor mill at Yellowstone) that there was a grizzly located somewhere along the Gibbon river several miles above Gibbon falls. As I was hurrying to find the location I kept watching the river bank hoping to see the bear. It was early in the day with the sun just rising over the rim of the  canyon and as I got further into the canyon the walls got steeper and it got darker and I noticed how blue the light was getting. Being both a wildlife and nature shooter I entered into that no man’s land where you have to make a decision on what to shoot. Possible bear or sure thing river. I have always found that a river in hand is worth two bears in the bush, so I stopped and climbed down to the river side to make this shot. It was very, very cold, I’m estimating about a million below zero, so I only made a couple of images. I climbed out and continued to look for the bear but as it turned out there wasn’t two bears in the bush, there wasn’t even one. So for me the image justified the decision and the title brought home both the color and the disappointment, hence the name Gibbon Blues.