we arrived in gardener at around eight last night and were out in the park by 6 this morning. It was a very exciting day. we have already seen wolves in the Lamar valley. the junction butte pack was out and about today. We saw nine wolves of the pack, eight black wolves and one gray wolf. they were laying down when we first saw them. After our tour in the Lamar valley we went into mammoth to talk to Travis, winch is the bear biologist for Yellowstone National Park. he talked about the history of the elk and bears in the park, and mostly got into detail on some management practices and some of the wildlife human interactions that the rangers have to deal with.

we then went to the otter creek dump site where there was a feeding table for bears. They were used as tourist attraction where bears will come eat garbage and people will sit around and watch, they were removed in 1930. we never did see a bear, but we did see some bear scat. we also saw a large amount of bison and elk. my favorite part of the day is when we saw a pack of five coyotes playing by the Yellowstone river in the Lamar valley. they were jumping and playing around and they were very fun and interesting to watch them. I’m excited for tomorrow to possibly see a bear and go on some hikes.