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Tag Archives: grizzly

Wildlife Brigade Part II – Animal Jams and Dispatch Calls

From the emergence in early March of male grizzly bears, through the elk and moose rut of the fall, until the last bear heads for their den in December, the animals of the park keep the Wildlife Brigade working seven days a week, from dawn until dark.  Jams of All Sizes We may find ourselvesContinue reading “Wildlife Brigade Part II – Animal Jams and Dispatch Calls”

True or False: Park Rangers Always Know Where Every Animal Is In The Park

True or False: Park Rangers Always Know Where Every Animal Is In The Park. False! True or False: All of the animals in the park “are chipped.” False again. True or False: Wildlife Management does not always mean just the four-legged kind. Absolutely true! According to many visitors that we meet on the side ofContinue reading “True or False: Park Rangers Always Know Where Every Animal Is In The Park”

Just in Time: Bear Training!

This week has been a full gas week, between Dave’s efforts with Wildlife Brigade, two days of lecture style in-person (not Zoom!) training sessions, and helping prep for the start of operations at String Lake. On Monday alone the brigade worked five bear jams, and an elk jam near Signal Mountain. Apparently there is aContinue reading “Just in Time: Bear Training!”

Well, that was an Epic first day of work!

Exhausted and happy — isn’t that that the best way to end a work day!? Dave’s day started very early at 5:00 am — getting up to write and post the RV Weather forecasts, before preparing for his first day as the New Guy Trainee with the Wildlife Brigade. Lunch packed: check; uniform with nameContinue reading “Well, that was an Epic first day of work!”

Nine Days on the Road – Pt. 2

The conclusion of our 2,022 mile trip across the northern United States to begin our second season as volunteers in Grand Teton National Park. [Part 1 here] Friday is another travel day and we stay at a Harvest Host in Shoshoni Wyoming. We visited before and it was easy to come back. The farm dogContinue reading “Nine Days on the Road – Pt. 2”

Heading Home

Our expectations of what our time in the park would be like closely resembled a Hollywood dream sequence. 32 work hours per week, divided any way we wanted between two people seemed perfect. Two days on, five days off to play, right!? What could be easier?! We hadn’t factored in COVID and its impact on the park, or having a single vehicle into our plans. 

Adventure: Yellowstone, Day 2

During the night I discover that my height is exactly the same as the distance from the front seat-back to the back hatch door. Headlights from a few late arriving campers shine in the car during the night, and we could have used more padding but overall the night wasn’t too bad. We were very lucky, the forecast low did not verify — we stayed near 40 degrees. As Dave says, “It could have been worse. We could have been trying to sleep sitting in an airplane seat.”

Adventure: Yellowstone

Let’s go to Lamar. We’ll ride through Hayden Valley and see what we see. Along the way, we pick up ready made sandwiches from the vendor in the Canyon area, scope out where the campground is located and resume the trip. The last time we had been in this area was December 2014 — it was novel to see it without five feet of snow. And with people.