Yellowstone Sanctuary, home to bears, cougar, Ted Turner's magpie, may close

Mountain lion peers out from lair.

MT’s only wildlife sanctuary may close because it’s not meeting federal regulations, but it won’t say which ones.

Keep reading Closing MT’s only wildlife rehab center, home to bear, lynx, Ted Turner’s magpie?

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Gifts of the Crow: brain scan proof these birds are devious, silly and smart

Biologists use brain scans (and entertaining experiments and anecdotes) to show that crows, ravens and other corvids think like people.

Keep reading Gifts of the Crow: brain scan proof these birds are devious, silly and smart

How quickly will national elk feeding grounds spread chronic wasting disease?

The century old tradition of feeding elk outside Yellowstone could end up severely hurting the population by spreading chronic wasting disease.

Keep reading How quickly will national elk feeding grounds spread chronic wasting disease?

Yellowstone Bison to be hunted or chemically castrated

Yellowstone Bison

MT Gov wants to hunt bison in Yellowstone Park. The USDA wants to chemically castrate them. Either way, ranchers get to cut their numbers.

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150 Yellowstone buffalo risk slaughter; Possum on diet to cure cross-eyes

Yellowstone Park rounds up 300 bison; likely to slaughter half to please local cattlemen. Did Heidi the possum go cross-eyed from being fat? Jane Lynch v. AKC

Keep reading 150 Yellowstone buffalo risk slaughter; Possum on diet to cure cross-eyes

Hunter shoots Assateague wild horse; Yellowstone wolf poisoned by banned compound

Wild Horse Grazing

Hunters shot and killed a 28-year old mare on MD’s Assateague National Sea Shore. 1080 poison was what killed a Yellowstone wolf that wandered to CO.

Keep reading Hunter shoots Assateague wild horse; Yellowstone wolf poisoned by banned compound

Coyotes Couldn’t Control Valley Forge Wolves, Critics Say. Tell that to Yellowstone Elk

Valley Forge Deer by garmeni

For the first two years they’re going to just kill as many deer as they can, regardless of gender. Then they’ll switch to killing 3 does to every 2 bucks. Killing bucks doesn’t really do anything to the population; one buck will mate with many does. They could kill a lot fewer animals if they would lean more heavily on the does–and right from the start.

Keep reading Coyotes Couldn’t Control Valley Forge Wolves, Critics Say. Tell that to Yellowstone Elk

Yellowstone Pronghorn, Found in the Park’s North, Watch You Back

Pronghorn jumps

Pronghorn passes us on Specimen Ridge

You can only see pronghorn antelope in the northern part of Yellowstone National Park. That seems to be true with a lot of animals in the park, but it’s officially true with the pronghorn. In my trip I didn’t see any big herds, but got to meet a few charismatic individuals and see some small family groups once we were near Roosevelt.

What was striking about the animals was that they watched us with their huge dark eyes and even approached us. (A sign somebody may have fed them, perhaps?) We ran into one on Specimen Ridge. She kept walking down the trail towards us, eyes making contact all  the time. We chatted to her. She eventually veered to the side, but was comfortable close by. All the pronghorns we saw were engaged in the encounter, but not overly scared.

Friendly Pronghorn

Both sexes have horns, but only the boys’ horns sprout prongs or points. They’re native and endemic to the west (they’re from here and only here). They’re the only animal in the world to shed their horns each year, the National Parks Service says.

The most unfortunate thing about the pronghorn antelope another opportunity to tell you that you’ve gotten an animal’s name wrong. Just like the American buffalo isn’t really a buffalo, the pronghorn isn’t really an antelope under the current taxonomic regime, which requires antelopes have antlers that don’t shed.

The more serious problem is that the

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Yellowstone Buffalo: Don’t Worry, If You Visit, You’ll See Plenty of ’em

baby bison

It wasn’t enough to see bison, we wanted to see them doing something. They delivered. Over six days in the park my husband David and I got to see bison nursing calves, herds blocking the road, bulls ramming each other, using their horns and mouth to strip bark off trees and tons of grazing or napping

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Otters in Yellowstone and Grand Teton

Otter Boys Play

River otters are one of those animals that you can do all the right things–stake out the lakes they’re known to visit, drag yourself out of bed at 5 am–and still not get to see. You have to get lucky.

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