Goal is to have most entrances open by April 15-
All roads will probably not be open until Memorial Day, or even after. It was a heavy winter.
Snow plowing starts at Yellowstone National Park
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Dr. Ralph Maughan is professor emeritus of political science at Idaho State University. He was a Western Watersheds Project Board Member off and on for many years, and was also its President for several years. For a long time he produced Ralph Maughan’s Wolf Report. He was a founder of the Greater Yellowstone Coalition. He and Jackie Johnson Maughan wrote three editions of “Hiking Idaho.” He also wrote “Beyond the Tetons” and “Backpacking Wyoming’s Teton and Washakie Wilderness.” He created and is the administrator of The Wildlife News.
Comments
If they vere a little bit into some meadows, perhaps it will help make a few bison happier and somewhat more satiated. Sure would beat spending time in a buffalo concentration camp in crowded conditions with food and water, perhaps without the rest of your family or band.
This is going to be a tough year for the Bison. A few years back on the opener of West I watched them struggle up in Hayden and then wander down the highway to graze along the sparse grasses that opened up along the Madison. Females heavy in the belly with young. The damn fools driving the highways would not give them an inch of roadway and that’s all they had for decent travel. People piss me off!
Skyrim, the same thing is going on right now in the park. There are bison that are nothing but skin and bones walking the roads. It is so sad to see as cars and trucks zip by, some just pushing them, others blowing their horns (or even official park vehicles turning on their sirens) and chasing them off into the deep snow. Vehicles hauling snowmobiles and delivery trucks are the worst.
I will not drive them, if I have to sit there for an hour. I’m sorry if that ticks some people off, which it obviously does as they fly around me, sometimes giving me the one fingered salute (I will pull into a turnout and wait if possible), but these animals (many of them) are on their last leg. It’s one thing to gently nodge healthy bison to the side of the road in the summer, quite another to send weak, possibly dying animals plunging in a panic head first into several feet of snow only to watch them struggle to move once in it. I have actually been avoiding the park this winter because it has been so hard to watch.
I did see something the other day that put a smile on my face, though. I came around a bend and there were two nice, healthy looking bulls tussling in the middle of the road. I pulled into the turnout that was conveniently right there to wait until they moved on. A brand new full size pickup truck came along and blew his horn, barely slowing down. One of the bulls plowed into the snowbank in a panic to get off the road. The other, however, would have none of it. As the truck was driving past him he reared up on his hind legs, just like a bighorn ram, and slammed into the side of the pickup; then he chased the truck down the road! The truck never stopped, but the driver has a nice big dent in his pretty new truck as a souvenir of his visit to Yellowstone.
This happens far more often than people realize, and yet not often enough in cases like this IMO. I even got a small little “love tap” from a bull once when I was sitting still in a turnout waiting for a herd to pass. Why can’t people learn to respect the beautiful, magnificient creatures?
Looks like the opening date are about the same as usual.
Alan, Glad to hear that at least one Bison got even. I’ve wished for such an event many times.