![]() The male grizzly, 7 feet tall and weighing close to 1,000 pounds, "is the king of beasts, but they're slow," said Douglas Smith, who leads the National Park Service's Yellowstone Wolf Project. "It is probably very normal in a multi-predator, multi-prey system for predators to compete for a carcass. Geological Survey's Chuck Schwartz, leader of greater Yellowstone's Interagency Grizzly Bear Study Team. "It's a toothy world out there," said the U.S. When meat-eaters have plenty to eat - and there are about 14,000 elk in greater Yellowstone, the densest population on the continent - they spend considerable time pushing one another around like bullies on a playground. "When there are wolves and coyotes, there are always going to be kills of coyotes."Īnd evidence is growing that other species are fighting and dying as well. "Things are starting to sort themselves out," said coyote specialist Robert Crabtree, of the Yellowstone Ecological Research Center. The Northern Rockies coyote population, which had the run of the park after wolves were exterminated in the 1930s, has been halved to 225 animals since the wolves returned. ![]() Nowhere else on the continent can boast such variety.Īnd all the species, with the exception of coyotes, are prospering, either protected under the Endangered Species Act or by hunting or trapping restrictions. ![]() With the reintroduction of the gray wolf in 1995, the park and its suburbs now have a full complement of North America's great carnivores: wolves, grizzly bears, black bears, cougars, coyotes and wolverines. This encounter occurred April 22, an unusual example of predator killing predator in the remote reaches of greater Yellowstone Park, a 40,600-square-mile tract of wilderness spreading like an ink blot across the junction of Wyoming, Montana and Idaho.īut while the wolverine may have chosen a mismatch bordering on madness, scientists say that predators killing one another is probably part of the natural order of things, and greater Yellowstone is offering an unprecedented opportunity to test the theory. The wolverine carcass was "intact," albeit with a crushed head and bear bites all over its body. There were a few elk hairs on the ground and signs the bear had carried the elk away. "We don't know how it unfolded, except that the wolverine lost," said wolverine expert Kristine Inman, of the Wildlife Conservation Society. The slain elk, carrying as much as 550 pounds of meat, was a prize worth fighting for. The black bear had arisen from a long winter's sleep and was almost certainly very hungry. The wolverine may have been as nasty as any predator in the mountains, but it weighed only 27 pounds. states have reintroduced small elk herds into heavily wooded wilderness areas.It was not a fair fight. Today they live primarily in western North America, especially in mountainous landscapes such as Wyoming's National Elk Refuge and Yellowstone National Park. ![]() Population DistributionĮlk were once found across much of North America but they were killed off and driven to take refuge in more remote locations. ![]() The herds return to lower valley pastures where elk spend the season pawing through snow to browse on grass or settling for shrubs that stand clear of the snow cover. In the winter, elk reconvene into larger herds, though males and females typically remain separate. Males with the bigger antlers, typically older animals, usually win these battles and dominate small herds. These powerful animals strip the velvet off their new antlers using them in violent clashes that determine who gets to mate with whom. Antlers and Matingĭuring the late summer breeding season the bugling of bull elk echoes through the mountains. Each cow typically has a single calf, which can stand by the time it is 20 minutes old. In early summer, elk migrate to high mountain grazing grounds where the cows (females) will give birth. Preparation for Breeding Seasonīull elk lose their antlers each March, but they begin to grow them back in May in preparation for the late-summer breeding season. A bull (male) elk's antlers may reach 4 feet above its head, so that the animal towers 9 feet tall. Elk are also called wapiti, a Native American word that means “light-colored deer.” Elk are related to deer but are much larger than most of their relatives. ![]()
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