Last night's Chamber event as it kicked off...
The information tent... membership and donations encouraged ;)
Craft beers and IPAs were provided by a brewery in Colorado...
The band was Whiskey Mornin, comprised of Jackson locals Taylor Upton & Leif Routman who founded the band in 2012. Their style is influenced Motown, modern pop, classic rock, hip-hop, and more. I must say, Wyoming Chamber mixers are a lot more casual and fun than east coast events. Not a suit to be seen!
All in all, a fun event. I wish I could have stayed longer to meet some new people, but there was a 6PM Yellowstone presentation in Jackson at the Center for the Arts. Off I went, determined to get a seat in the 500 seat venue... I didn't want to get turned away like I did at the sold out "Bear 399" lecture in June!
I got a front row seat in the balcony, and David Quammen was introduced as an author of over a dozen books, Boseman MT resident and Yellowstone ecosystem expert with over 20 years of experience. In May 2016, National Geographic decided to devote an entire issue to Yellowstone and for the first time in its history, one author wrote the entire issue. That man was David. He worked with a team of iconic photographers from the magazine, and the result was spectacular. I read the issue last week, and many of its images were featured during the presentation but with in-depth commentary and additional photos.
I was determined to attend this presentation because on Sept. 5th/6th, I'm finally taking my park pass on my days off and driving north to see and experience Yellowstone for the first time. I plan to drive up the east side of the park on day 1, spend the night at a little motel in Gardiner, Montana and drive back down the west side of the park on day 2. About 300 miles round trip... I can't wait!
Apparently, if you drive every road in Yellowstone and stop for a quick peek at all the "major attractions" you'd still only be seeing 1% of the park! It covers millions of acres and has countless back country trails, land, waterfalls and campsites rarely visited by the average tourist. It even has its own grand canyon which I plan to visit. Over 4 million "tourons" have visited this year so far, breaking records for park capacity, traffic (bear photo) jams and doing stupid things like taking selfies with dangerous bison and bears. A hiker without bear spray was killed and literally "eaten on" by a grizzly with cubs, not far from a park hotel last August (2015). Oh well. This slide drew big laughs:
This year, the park is also newly filled with "don't squat to pee" signs because hords of Asian tourists are not used to sitting and break the toilet seats. Probably not the best year to visit Yellowstone during the National Parks 100th Anniversary crowds, but I'm here and kids are back in school, so why not? I may never pass this way again...
Anyway, back to the lecture.... David described the evolution of the national parks and how in the late 1800s until 1960s, thousands of "bad wildlife" animals including bison, mountain lions, wolves, coyotes and even white pelicans were killed in order to attract tourists to see the "good wildlife"... friendly, hand-fed bears that actually ate from car windows and lived on park garbage. Rare white pelicans were killed and their nests and eggs destroyed to protect the dwindling trout population that they fed on, another big draw for fishing tourists and even Presidents.
Eventually some Yellowstone species neared extinction, and attitudes thankfully changed. Park dumps and garbage were finally secured and then bear populations plummeted but they eventually learned to feed themselves and avoid people somewhat. Grizzlies and wolves were put on endangered species lists and protected, with wolves being reintroduced in the 1995. Both species are thriving these days, and Montana and Wyoming now have to deal with angry cattle ranchers who want to protect their investments and livelihoods from the carnivorous wildlife.
It's a delicate balance and hotly contested issue. Bottom dwelling Lake Trout were inadvertently introduced into Yellowstone in the 1960s, nearly making the native, top-dwelling Cutthroat Trout extinct and thereby affecting Bald Eagle and bear diets and habitats. Sadly, now the Lake Trout are being slaughtered by the thousands (not even utilized for food since the Park isn't equipped to meet health department quality and safety standards) but will likely never be completely eliminated from these western lakes where they don't "belong." This is a photo by Charlie Hamilton James... a grizzly protecting its bison kill from competing wildlife.Amazing!
Both grizzlies and wolves are spreading out way past the boundaries of Yellowstone, migrating to places they've never been seen before and having dangerous encounters with humans. Bison migrations into Montana lead to herds on highways. Elk migrations lead huge herds down to the Elk Refuge in Jackson each November where they have wintered for centuries. Highways and ranch fences have created challenges for migrating animals, but newly installed, wide, grassy migration overpasses are helping prevent road kill. David told us that grizzlies are central to the Yellowstone ecosystem and have over 250 things they eat in the wild. They mainly exist on meat (elk, deer, hikers... ha-ha), trout, white bark pine nuts and army cutworm moths. Each of these have their own predators and challenges to deal with that could eventually eradicate them and adversely affect grizzly populations again.
Long story short, Yellowstone is a very fragile and ever-changing ecosystem that must be monitored and protected if future generations are to enjoy it. There is now talk of eliminating private cars and using buses like they do in Zion, and/or limiting the number of park passes sold. I'm all for it. Personally, I think a lottery system like they use for Masters Tournament tickets would be ideal. What a great presentation. David's books were delayed due to a printing error, so I wasn't able to buy one. Instead, I received an autographed book plate which I'll likely affix to my Yellowstone National Geographic issue ;)
Since I'm talking about wildlife, I thought I'd include these pics from this week on the ranch... a family of deer (one fawn hidden behind tree) having breakfast on the lodge lawn:
Earlier in the week, the back of my cabin at sunrise...
The bridge to Pete's Pond...
Sunrise on the Snake River...
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