Wild Yellowstone wolf at a fresh elk kill

This is one of the beta males from the Yellowstone Canyon wolf pack, colloquially known as 'big sexy' by Yellowstone wolf watchers. The evening before, park staff had noticed two rutting male elk in conflict, and this one was forced into a stream and may have been injured. The following morning the Canyon wolf pack had circled the bull elk, and it quickly submerged and died in the stream, a few meters from a major road. Thanks to Nathan Varley and Linda Thurston from wolftracker.com (The Wild Side guiding company) for finding this fresh kill so quickly for us. Unfortunately for the wolves, the carcass had to be moved by park staff for safety reasons. After all their effort, I like to think the Canyon pack found it again. Notice how much energy it takes to tear meat off this fresh carcass. Actual video is much sharper HD, but it had to be compressed for uploading. View at highest resolution. Audio is untouched, and background sounds are human 'wildlife paparazzi'.

Category:

Pets & Animals

Tags:

• wolves
• yellowstone wolves
• wolf
• wolf kill
• kill
• elk
• elk kill
• big sexy
• canyon pack
• Nathan Varley
• Linda Thurston
• the Wild Side
• yellowstone guiding
• wildlife guiding
• wolf pack
• wild wolves
• bull elk
• wolf hunting elk
• wolves kill elk

[highcountryhal]

Enjoy watching them eat elk while you can. In another 10 years, there may be no elk left in yellowstone because of wolf predation........

[spelunkerd]

@highcountryhal That was the prediction 10 years ago. I wasn't there then. But looking at Yellowstone now, I am amazed at how many big animals the ecosystem can support, even now after several generations of wolves have lived and died there. Too bad the wolves don't take more bison, since those beasts seem to have overrun Yellowstone.

[highcountryhal]

@spelunkerd You have not been to yellowstone if you saw elk. The only elk you see are the ones in the established towns in yellowstone. Not many left, and moose are just about all gone now.

[spelunkerd]

@highcountryhal Huh? I saw more elk than I have ever seen in my life. Probably more than 1000 animals.

[rlav2000]

That's not a wolf. It's a good size coyote though.

[spelunkerd]

@rlav2000 I admire your self confidence, even though, in this case, it is misplaced. Please see the appended links for further details.

[highcountryhal]

@pcblah You are right on that....I gues what I see more with the park biologists is that they would like to have man out of the equation....hunting as an example. Well, the hunting around the park is about gone now and alot of folks lost alot of income from those elk, overpopulated or not. I know of many people from my area that took trips in years past to harvest a cow elk for the freezer. In the process, stayed in motes, ate food, etc and now thats not happening. Just a thought.....

[pcblah]

@highcountryhal well there was a experament in the 1960's... it is not well known but i think its just very hard to fix things when its fucked up... so we should not fuck things up in the first place...

[highcountryhal]

@pcblah Well, I have to admit there is alot of proof that it is the same species but alot would argue that. I would say the wolf they brought was use to killing larger prey. This would explain why they are killing our smaller moose into extinction. I do mean this because there are very few left. Very few.

[pcblah]

@highcountryhal nvm again it turns out that they released the wrong wolf in the northern rockies only...

[pcblah]

@highcountryhal nvm i just realized that they released the wrong type of wolf into yellowstone... (its bigger and its a invasive species)

[highcountryhal]

@pcblah Just because you are not capable of understanding the issue does not mean it is stupid.....

[pcblah]

@highcountryhal ... the stupidity...

[highcountryhal]

@spelunkerd uh huh......