My first day in Yellowstone EVER was full of wildlife. Pretty much as soon as we entered the park we encountered bighorn sheep on one side of the mountain and elk on the other. It was entertaining watching the sheep run around on the rough terrain and slopes. One sheep even got some serious air as it jumped off a huge rock projection onto a rocky slope. We continued on our way down the road and into Mammoth Hot Springs. There we learned that elk winter over there because of the green lawns and Kentucky blue grass lawns that are nice to eat. In Mammoth, we learned about Ungulate Management from Travis Wyman.

Yellowstone Management has gone through many eras of management.

1. Wide open hunting in the late 1800’s
2. Feeding Era – Yellowstone Rangers fed the wildlife to try and bring back populations.
3. Agriculture Era – Rangers and Biologists managed wildlife like a ranch.
4. Reduction Era – there was again too much wildlife so many wildlife was shipped around the country to restock other populations
5. Current Management – finally reaching some sort of balance through hunting and natural predation and other natural death.

Later in the day we drove down to Lamar Valley and visited many skeletons and Number 9’s den from 1997 on a short hike. Number 9 was one of the main wolves and one of the first wolves introduced into Yellowstone.

Finally to end the night, we learned more about Yellowstone photography and ethics from MacNeil Lyons. So not a bad first day in Yellowstone!