West Yellowstone

While we were seeing Yellowstone we stayed in the town of West Yellowstone.  There are a lot of touristy things to do there but our favorite thing to do in the evening was settle in at the cabin and unwind.  The kids did school work, filled in their junior ranger assignments and played games.

One of the unexpected favorites of the vacation was the Wolf and Grizzly Discovery center in West Yellowstone.

When Yellowstone park was established in 1872 wolves were hunted as predator control.  Unfortunately by the 1970s there were no wolves left in the Yellowstone area.  In 1994 they re-introduced wolves to Yellowstone national park. At the end of 2011, at least 98 wolves in 10 packs plus 2 loners occupied the park.  You can learn about the fascinating story at the Wolf Discovery center.  You can also follow their progress at-  http://www.nps.gov/yell/naturescience/wolves.htm

The Discovery center takes in wolves and Grizzlys that are no longer able to live in the wild either because of illness, injury or because they have shown aggression to humans.

The very observant may notice there are pictures from two different visits.  We went late in the evening one day and our pass was good for one more visit so on our way out of town the next morning we went again.  We got there when it opened and it was COLD.  But the wolves were very active and hunting fish in their stocked stream.  The pictures of them fishing didn't turn out unfortunately.

 

Next we went to see the Grizzly bears.

Then Jacob, Clara and Anna signed up for a class on bears that included getting to hide food for the bears at the end.

The challenge of hiding the food is that bears can smell amazingly well and are extremely strong.  So the children were suppose to hide it under rocks, logs, stacks of wood, anything that would give the bears a challenge when they were released into the enclosure.

They spent about 15 minutes stacking wood, lifting rocks, and hiding the food in hard to find places.

Good job kids!  Now leave the pen so the bears can look for the food you hid.  How long will it take?

 Here come the bears.

Within a few minutes they have flipped over stumps that took 3 kids to move.  Turned over boulders.  Pawed through bushes.  They found all the food much faster than it took the children to hide it.

Elayna was too young for the program but she did get to watch through the telescope.

"Hey!  I was here first!"

Right before you leave there is a fun play area with a cave, tipi and playground equipment.

 

The discovery center is also used as a test area for makers of "bear proof" garbage cans and food containers.  Here are a few that were sent back to the drawing board.