Is 3 old enough to trust that the kid will hold an adult’s hand and not go running off (I’m sure this depends on the kid and the parent), or young enough to keep in a stroller? If your kid is a runner like that and won’t stay in a stroller, I wouldn’t take them to any place that involved volcanoes, hot springs, or wild animals, for obvious reasons. I’d make sure any kid knew that they shouldn’t feed or approach wild animals before going to any park that had them.
Sorry to tell you, but you probably didn’t. It was almost certainly a black bear you saw, even if it didn’t look black (black bears can have many different colors of fur). Black bears rarely attack humans. Brown bears (including grizzly bears) are much more likely to attack humans, but they’ve been extinct in the wild in California since about 1922. Bears in California will break into your car (if you leave anything that smells like food in there), but they won’t eat you.
If you’ve never been there, it’s hard to realize just how much the animal life is a part of the experience. People are obviously morons for trying to feed the animals, but it would be hard to get those animals any more used to people than they already are.
The same two bison roamed through our campground for an entire week. The two moose that we raced to photograph in the small field across the street from us…yeah, they were there the entire week as well. I saw people walking through entire herds of mule deer.
I’m surprised it hasn’t been mentioned in this thread, but one of neatest, yet saddest things I saw in Yellowstone was the proximity of all of the animals. They just didn’t take very much notice of the humans until someone walked up and pulled a tail (True story. Some idiot in our campground got the brilliant idea to try and get a Bison in position for a better shot.).
ETA: I was there in '89, right after the big fire. Things may have changed a bit by now.
True about the wildlife. I was amazed at how even the Pronghorns did not move away from the road when I drove by. I am so used to the deer around here skedaddling (usually) and the Pronghorns in other western states I’ve driven through moving rapidly away from my approaching car…the Yellowstone Pronghorns barely lifted their heads when I slowed down to take a look at them. In my pictures there is a shot of a bison that made a particular campsite its home…
We have photograph from a trip when I was a child. It shows a couple of people walking amongst a small group of moose. Probably a family group - moose aren’t big social herders.
Anyway, in my parent’s photo album, it’s labeled, “The moose and the idiots”.
A trip to Yellowstone in later years was coincident with a goring by a Bison. The tourist tried to put his arm around the bull while posing for a photo.
Another trip was coincident with a bear killing a camper. He broke the rules and left his cooler out on his picnic table. He returned to his campsite to find two bear cubs rummaging through it so he decide to grab a stick and try to beat the cubs off the food. Mama bear came out of the bushes and killed him.
Two seasons ago or so, I saw a couple teens trying to creep up on a group of Elk in Rocky Mountain National Park during early rutting season. The male elk, not normally tolerant of people, are much jumpier at this time. I walked up to the man that appeared to be the boys’ parent and told him that elk were known to charge people with those nice pointy antlers. He blew me off. We called the rangers to come supervise.
Yet another year, a hiker left the trail in RMNP and tried to scale a waterfall. He slipped and killed himself on the rocks below.
Big fan of Yellowstone (and National Parks in general). I’ve been a half-dozen times and had adventures in all parts of the park. One of the coolest things I saw was from a campsite at Mammoth Hot Springs. I was sipping my morning coffee, enjoying the view out over the valley, where a herd of elk were browsing. Suddenly, they all perked up as a big black bear came loping into view. The elk were gone in a flash, but it was obvious where the bear was heading…it was breakfast time in the campground!
(S)he made a beeline right up into the campground and started making the rounds, looking for unsecured food. People were just waking up and getting out of their tents to quite a surprise! I tried to sneak around for some pictures of the bear, but when it noticed me, I became the object of its attention. I had to hightail it back to the truck where I could observe in a more secure location.
BTW, Ken Burns is polishing up his latest documentary, The National Parks: America’s Best Idea. I can’t wait for it to come on–even though it will surely be shown with endless pledge breaks!
A plea to all potential Yellowstone visitors: Please do NOT throw coins into the glory holes or other natural features. They are delicate formations and coins will punch holes right through them. They don’t repair themselves and idiot tourists who have this bizarre obsession with throwing fucking coins in every goddamn puddle they see have ruined many of the finest examples :: pantpantpant:: Also, restrain your children from doing the same, cuz if I’m standing nearby, you’re both going to join your quarter in short order.
Bears, I agree. But coyotes adapt to living with humans pretty well. Not saying you should feed them, mind you, it’s usually a bad idea (bird feeders aside).
In some zoos, they have a few animals set aside specifically where the humans can interact and feed them.
I think this is a great idea.
And of course the “petting zoo” areas where most of the animals are domesticated.
Here are pics from my trip to Yellowstone (and the Bozeman, Montana area) in the summer of 2007.
I grew up near Bozeman, which is about 90 miles from the Park, so I have been there many, many times. Still an awesome place. Not only is snow in June not very unheard of in the Park, but even at home I remember snow in every month but July and August (and my mother tells me it has snowed in August, too.) We used to often find unmelted snowbanks at Yellowstone and have summer snowball fights. 2007 was a very warm year, though, and I didn’t see any snow left at all.
I bought my sister that “Death in Yellowstone” book that blondebear mentioned as a souvenir. She loved it. My sister has been a bit obsessed with natural disasters ever since we visited the Hebgen Lake area (which is near the Park), which still bears signs of a large earthquake that happened in 1959.
Have you driven in via Beartooth Pass? I really enjoyed that drive. In July, the snowbanks were still about 10 feet tall on either side of the road in some parts. Unbelievable.
Yes, my father took us that way once. We couldn’t even see much–we were up in the clouds! I think it actually was snowing a bit that day. My husband and I briefly considered coming in that way in '07, but we decided that it wouldn’t be wise after the long haul that is the drive from Minnesota.
As it is now, the animals pretty much ignore the humans: They know we’re no threat, but they have no reason to seek us out, either. But when humans feed the animals, they don’t ignore us, and a grizzly not-ignoring a human is a recipe for disaster for all parties involved
As I expected, the last in the series was August through to December and the start of the big snowfalls.
It concentrated on the animals laying in as much food as possible and also putting on fat to see them throgh the winter.
A few things I learned:
The Pronghorn evolved to run at speed in order to escape the now extinct American cheetah.
Wolves were only re-introduced into Yellowstone in 1995, the same time as the beavers appeared.
Farmers tolerate the elks on their land provided they don’t eat to much, they also scare wolves away rather than shoot them.
The orange jackets that hunters wear have a twofold purpose, one is to stop other hunters mistaking them for elk, the other is that elk can’t see the colour orange…now who knew that?
Possibly one of the funniest moments was when a beaver, a fraction of the size of an elk, scared it off from its (the beavers) larder by slapping the water with its tail and sending the elk scarpering.
It has to be said that when the place is carpeted with snow it looks absolutely beautiful, clean, fresh and pristine
I was there about 10 years after the big fire, and traces of it were still very apparent. You could clearly see where it had been, and just where it had stopped. The land was recovering, and you could see new growth starting and growing strongly. But it was clear that parts of the park would show the scars from this fire for a quarter-century or more.
But it was still very beautiful, and well worth a visit. We were there in the deep winter, and seeing the hot springs & geysers in the midst of snowbanks was very impressive. We drove through the park to the Northeast entrance, and it was beautiful to see. Many of the roads were closed, and you could see areas where the snow was 20-30 feet deep. The animals are visible, even in winter, and they think they own the place. The bison, in particular, may decide they want to walk across the road, and you better get your car out of the way, or they will just smash into it (and sheet metal fenders are much weaker than a bison!).
Another thing I remember is the attitude of the people living around there – they are in the midst of such beauty, and they mistreat it so badly. You can really notice the difference in coming out of the park onto the private land, and seeing ugly, trashy buildings, garbage dumps, litter tossed anywhere, etc. After the gorgeous park, it was a real letdown.
This is a trifle misleading. Elk are regarded as colorblind, because they have only rods as light receptors - no cones. That effectively means they see in black and white. But they can certainly see the difference between an orange shirt and dark pants, just as a human could in a monochromatic image. And their ability to detect movement is good.
True. The last time I was in Yellowstone was in July 2002 and there was snow on the ground in patches. My boyfriend-at-the-time and I had not taken this into account and we spent the night shivering.
Oh yeah. I had just come off the high plains NE of Billings and had experienced degree temps there so this was a bit different. There were people still snowmobiling up there.
