Yellowstone Adventure 2021 - Day 62 (The Elk Kill)

    Today started out rainy bus soon turned to spitting snow.  Then it went back to rain and then the sun came out. Go figure mountain weather.  The store was somewhat busy, but like before we had very little in the way of stock to put on the shelves.  I managed 13,000 steps today but only worked 4 hours, as Mark was working and we did not need two grocery stockers right now.

   The highlight of the day was not too far from where we are a pack of wolves took down an elk.  They fed on it most of the night but when the day came tourists spotted the activity.  It was not long before someone told someone in the store about it and then Mark heard it.  He came up to the dorm TV lounge where I was peacefully watching Bat Masterson and told me about the elk kill.  I decided to go see it myself and try to get some pictures before the wolves ate all the elk.  I headed out in the spitting snow in my truck and sure enough came to the spot where the kill was.  It was easy to find in that there were a lot of cars and a few rangers there to keep an eye on things.  I stopped the truck and got a video of a wolf with a nice chunk of elk meat in its mouth running off into the direction of the Great Fountain Geyser.  I then drove a little closer and got a nice picture of what was left of the elk.  Man those wolves are efficient at cleaning a carcass for sure.  I got a nice picture of bones that were practically clean.  I then got another picture of a wolf coming into the kill area from another direction.  Both wolves I saw were black wolves but there was also a gray wolf hanging around.  I talked to the ranger and asked when she thought that a bear would come.  She said that is what they were waiting on.  Sooner or later a grizzly would get the scent and come to examine the kill.  I think later that day the rangers were going to drag the carcass farther from the road as to prevent anyone from getting too close to a grizzly if it appears.  The wolves would find the carcass no matter where they dragged it and would continue to eat on it until they were full or a grizzly scared them off.  It was a neat experience.  I hope you like the photos below.  Some were taken by me and some were taken by Chuck our maintenance man who has a nice telephoto lens.