I Spent 3 Months Photographing Wildlife in Yellowstone

evacuation efforts still underway after historic flooding ripped apart roads and destroyed bridges in the Yellowstone region flooding emergency at Yellowstone National Park all of Yellowstone Park is shut down unprecedented rainfall Raging Rivers flood water emergency crew historic flooding Yellowstone Department Washington the flooding in Yellowstone is massive [Music] this year was a historic one in Yellowstone National Park as many of you know record-breaking flooding shut down the park for 10 days and I was living and working in the park while it happened this was a crazy event to experience and it definitely had a huge impact on what and where I was able to shoot for the rest of the summer but it didn't stop me from getting out there in a minute we'll get to all the wildlife I was able to photograph post flood but before then [Music] raspberry and jam returned about 10 days before the shutdown I drove out to where my favorite Grizzlies in Yellowstone like to hang out they hadn't been seen since last year and it was past time for them to make an appearance along the roadside again thankfully today they did exactly that these are bears nicknamed raspberry and jam raspberry is a 15 year old female grizzly and jam is our now almost three-year-old cub [Music] most Bears kick their cubs out at two and a half years old but raspberry has a very strong special bond with Jam so she is staying with Jam an extra year [Music] this isn't the first time that one of Raspberry's Cubs has stuck with her for more than two and a half years her previous cup snow also stayed with her for well over three years and lucky for us today snow was out and about too just the females down the road from where raspberry and jam were [Music] named for her light color snow is the blondish bear you see here she's an adult bear now kicked out by raspberry three years ago the darker bear is a boar or a male bear that was hanging out in the area with hopes of mating snow today snow wasn't showing much interest in this big guy [Music] back up the road raspberry and jam had gone to sleep they laid on the logs for at least an hour before finally Jam got up and began nursing [Music] after nursing the Bears got up and disappeared into the forest it was a great few hours with these bears and I decided to head back over to that area a few days later to see if they were out again on the way there I came across a bull elk despite it only being early summer this guy's antlers were already pretty sizable if he keeps growing like that he's gonna be a real competitor when the rut rolls around this fall [Music] I continued on to where the Bears hang out and quickly Came Upon a small traffic jam I got out expecting to see that they were looking at Bears instead they were looking at a grouse I was about to get back in my truck when I noticed something on the hill above us rise and jam were dead out sprinting across the hillside why because of this guy a massive male grizzly was hot on their tail if he caught them he'd kill jam and would likely try to mate raspberry I jumped in my truck and shot up the road to where I thought the Bears might come out I didn't want to be in their way as they tried to escape the boar but I did want to see what happened next I knew Razz would make for the road she knows Mill bears are afraid of humans and will avoid the road so going there would keep Jam safe just as I'd hoped the two Grizzlies popped out right behind my truck I was the only person there and I was able to share an incredible up close encounter with these two bears that I love so much [Music] after passing my truck they continued up the road all the way to its end where they disappeared over the Butte and thankfully Raspberry's plan had worked between the growing crowd of human onlookers she had gathered and her proximity to the road she had successfully shaken the bore and jam would Live Another Day on a stormy evening a few days later I went out into Hayden Valley I didn't see much there but I did manage to find one bison up close that was grazing along the roadside it had been raining all day and as I left the valley for the evening storm clouds still loomed overhead little did anyone know at this point just how much damage the rain falling around us was about to do the next day while I was at work the entire park was shut down Rangers came in and asked our manager to close the store immediately and all visitors were evacuated all that was left in the park were employees despite it being almost Peak summer season Canyon Village was a ghost town the next few days were pretty uneventful we were restricted to our dorms had no power and it was snowing outside when we were finally able to drive around again I found both a red fox and a great great owl the light was a bit harsh though so I didn't get any great photos near the end of the flood shutdown a few co-workers and I took a trip down to Utah to explore some of the national parks there since we couldn't get out and hike in Yellowstone we figured it was a great opportunity to go check out some other parks finally after 10 days of closure Yellowstone reopened very quickly I went back into the absuroka range in the eastern part of the park where on a warm summer evening I found Razz and jam once again [Music] foreign [Music] they forged on the lush green grasses for a while and then came quite close to the crowd along the roadside [Music] [Music] thank you [Music] as nighttime neared the Bears disappeared and I drove back to Canyon after this we had a long spell of hot dry days in which there wasn't much to be found in Yellowstone even the bison and Hayden Valley seem to have disappeared so with such a lack of wildlife in my area I decided to head down to the Tetons for a few days while I was off work to see what I could find to shoot down there I drove around for hours my first day there and despite a very pretty double rainbow found no Wildlife however right before dark the elk were on the move and The Willow filled Meadows near Jackson Lake [Music] foreign this is a herd of cow elk with calves [Music] I love the Lush grasses that grow in these Meadows [Music] while the elk didn't necessarily seem worried they did continually look back and they all seem to be moving in the opposite direction of where they were looking [Music] a few minutes later I found out why a bear Jam just around the corner from the elk Grizzly 610 and our three Cubs were in the area and I just missed them by now it was getting pretty dark so unfortunately I never got a look at 610 and our Cubs I headed to tonight's Camp spot where I cooked and ate dinner [Music] and then went to bed the next morning I was up bright and early and I went straight to where 610 and her Cubs have been the night before unfortunately I didn't have any luck finding them but a little further up the road I did find another grizzly bear [Music] thank you despair is Bonita a bear eye photographed multiple times in the past as you might remember if you watched some of my previous videos she's the same pretty bear that she was last video but you might notice something a little different about her here see that collar around your neck at some point over the last month Bonita was trapped collared and numbered officially she is now grizzly 1063. [Music] Grizzlies in Greater Yellowstone are trapped each year as a part of ongoing research on bear populations in the gye this is a pretty controversial topic with some arguing that the trapping is unnecessary and doesn't contribute significantly to science others argue that it is totally necessary to continue trapping otherwise our data on these bears would become outdated regardless of anyone's opinion the trapping continues Bonita or 1063 is now five and a half years old she is no longer a sub-adult bear and she has now reached reproductive age if we're lucky she's been bred and next spring she'll pop out with some tiny little Grizzly Cubs in tow right now she's foraging for biscuit root the food sheets now will be essential to her survival through winter when she could lose as much as 30 percent of her body weight during hibernation it's awesome how comfortable she is along the roadside this will not only help protect our Cubs when she finally does have them from male bears but also provides so many visitors with the incredible experience of seeing a wild grizzly bear besides the greater Yellowstone ecosystem there's only one other place in the U.S that allows for such great opportunities to see and photograph grizzly bears and that's Alaska and as many of you may know when I hit 10 000 subscribers I'm going to be selecting one of you one of my subscribers to join me on a free trip to Alaska to see and photograph brown bears in the wild this trip will come at no cost to you and all you have to do for a chance to enter to win is be a subscriber to the channel so if you haven't already definitely hit that subscribe button down below eventually Bonita crossed the road foreign [Music] she worked her way along the tree line on the other side slowly foraging as she went [Music] it disappeared into the forest [Music] the rest of the day I didn't find much of anything it was a hot day and once the sun got high in the sky the wildlife disappeared so that night I focused on something else astrophotography the Milky Way was insanely bright on this particular night and I came away with a shot that I'm really happy with the next morning I had to return to Yellowstone to go back to work it was almost July now and it was getting hot in the park however despite the heat the wildlife activity didn't seem to cease for at least a few more weeks a few mornings later I found a Grizzly sow with two Cubs of the air out near the roadside rarely do I ever see Grizzlies close to the road in this area of the park so this was honestly a shock [Music] upon speaking with bear management and a few other photographers I was informed that this is a younger bear numbered 864 she very quickly disappeared over the ridge but later that evening I was able to find another bear with Cubs this time a black bear [Applause] [Music] all the rain we had gotten during the flood had really saturated the soils turning the part greener than ever as I drove into the Lush mountains above the Bears I came across a few cow elk and following behind them a black wolf both parties went separate ways the wolf was on its way to a bison carcass so it had no reason to waste energy chasing the elk a trip overdone Raven pass and down into Hayden Valley yielded even more Wildlife including another black bear and then a huge Grizzly out along the Yellowstone River due to the Bear's size and location it's possible that this bear is Grizzly 791 the biggest bear in Yellowstone but to be honest I can't be for sure about that given how far away the bear was [Music] as the bear moved along the river it came a little too close for comfort to a herd of bison just behind the ridge spooking them up the hill and towards the crowd of unlocking Park visitors [Music] thank you foreign [Music] foreign it was a great summer evening in the park with so much Wildlife to be seen but after that I had a few days of basically nothing then finally the mother Grizzly with two Cubs reappeared a little further north this time extremely far out too far out for any photos but I was able to get some cool video clips [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] man it had been an epic few weeks in Hayden Valley while the encounters may have been spread out and the animals too far out for photos I still got to witness some pretty cool stuff and I got footage of most of it however I did want to head to the east side of the park at least one more time this summer to hopefully catch raspberry jam and snow again I'd been over there eight or nine times since I last saw them in late June and had seen nothing and I just couldn't keep wasting gas driving an hour there and an hour back if I wasn't going to see anything so I decided I'd give it one last shot before I stopped going over there for the summer and thankfully this time it paid off [Music] raspberry and jam were way out in a meadow play fighting James has gotten big now and at times it was hard to tell the difference between the two of them [Music] after I got a good bit of footage of them I decided to move down the road to see what else I could find the sun was getting low and I was running out of light quickly fortunately for me I came around a corner and found myself in a traffic jam knowing this can only mean one thing I pulled over in about 200 yards out there was snow she was forging in a small Lush Valley surrounded by flowers I took a few photos but I wish she'd been a bit closer to get stuff that was a little better regardless it was still awesome to see her and I watched and filmed as she made her way along an embankment in beautiful golden light foreign [Music] then just as the sunset she went up and out of sight [Music] well July was coming to an end and the park was getting very hot and very dry while these conditions may make it difficult to find most Wildlife there's one species that becomes more active than ever this time of year bison foreign or Mating Season takes place the Bison congregate in large numbers oftentimes near the road and battle for mating rights on this particular evening the Bison were out near the road in Hayden Valley so I stopped and began shooting in the dramatic golden hour light [Music] thank you these large herds of Bison often cause huge traffic jams turning a 30 minute drive into a two-hour one so please if you're ever visiting the park and you see an animal you'd like to stop and view pull over even stopping for a few seconds to take a quick photo out the window can cause a massive traffic jam you might think that you stopping in the road for five seconds doesn't harm anything but when you and the 200 people behind you all decide to stop for five seconds it can cause huge backups so please just help make the park experience better for everyone and pull over [Music] foreign this big bull has found a female he's interested in he's smelling to see if she's ready to mate or not apparently she isn't the sunset and night began to fall on Yellowstone so I drove back to Canyon after this it was a few more weeks before I took any more photos I finished my time working in Yellowstone returned home for a week and then started the semester at Montana State University in Bozeman finally though near the end of August I made it back to the park for a weekend before I continue I do want to quickly mention that I do have prints up for sale on my website now if that's something that you're interested in I don't make much off YouTube ad Revenue so buying prints really does help and goes a long way in ensuring that I can continue to do this if you'd like to buy one I'll link below in the description where you can purchase so guys I am back in Yellowstone now and I am headed out towards Slough Creek towards the Lamar Valley area Lamar Valley is still closed but you can't get to SLU Creek with a valid permit or if you're a Park employee so I'm headed out to Slough Creek right now and um hoping to get some bison action out here I came out here yesterday didn't get any photos or video but there were a lot of Bison around so I'm hoping today that I can capture some cool stuff and hopefully we can get some rut action for this Vlog before we head into fall and get into uh you know the elkraut the Moose Run all the other ruts uh as the Bison rut here comes to an end the Rangers had set up a tent at Tower Junction where they were checking for entry permits after checking in I crossed the Yellowstone River and headed east towards the massive Valley known as Little America it didn't take long at all for me to find a small herd of bison near the roadside [Music] thank you [Music] the light was too harsh for photos but I did get some video as you can see the rut was still on but the Bulls chasing behind the cows hoping to mate them I moved on from this herd and drove farther towards Slough Creek soon clouds rolled in overhead creating nice soft lighting that would allow for good photos as I drove I spotted a bison to my left moving along a ridge I knew that if I could get ahead of him maybe I could get some cool photos of him walking along the ridge towards me I sped ahead pulled over and jumped out of the truck I crouched down in my open door and began shooting and I got just the shot I was hoping for I continued to film bison for the rest of the day it was very windy and very dusty and eventually a storm began to roll in overhead the Bison moved out to where the grass was greater as the storm passed through [Music] I shot a few time lapses of the storm as it moved through two using my phone's time lapse feature foreign and then one with my camera the first time I shot a time lapse on the R5 and I'm pretty happy with how it came out after the weather cleared I began to head back towards the parks exit [Music] [Music] but along the way I spotted a few pronghorns out in the distance so I decided to jump out and get a few clips of them [Music] these guys were in The Little America Valley [Music] Hey Summer here and in Lamar Valley where the weather is cooler and the grass greens later in the year compared to lower elevations [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] in the fall they migrate out to Paradise Valley just north of the park this area serves as their wintering grounds it's much lower in elevation and it doesn't get as cold or snowy there as it does in Yellowstone which makes their lives just a bit easier through the winter [Music] the Pronghorn stood up and gathered together then something seemed to spook them and they all ran off quickly disappearing over a ridge line foreign [Music] [Music] I continued back towards the west gate just before leaving the northern area of the park I came across my last animal for the trip a black bear [Music] thank you but just a few seconds after I showed up the bear decided to lay down and take a nap it had been a great weekend in the park but unfortunately I had to return to Bozeman for classes the day that I left the weather was really beginning to cool off in the Park Fall was on the way soon the green leaves would be changing to Orange the elk would be shedding their velvet and Yellowstone would transition from Summer to fall next Vlog I'll be back in the park to document that change and to show you guys the awesome Wildlife photography opportunities that fall in the gye has to offer until then I hope you guys have enjoyed this Vlog thank you all for watching and I'll see you all again soon [Music]

Channel: Watts Wildlife

Views: 145,812

Keywords: grand teton wildlife photography, wildlife photography in yellowstone, yellowstone wildlife photography, grizzly bear photography, photographing grizzly bears, grizzly 399 and 4 cubs, yellowstone photography, yellowstone grizzly bears, yellowstone wolf photography, yellowstone flooding, yellowstone bison photography, flooding in yellowstone, yellowstone flood, seasonal work, seasonal work in yellowstone, yellowstone seasonal work, living in yellowstone, live in a national park

Id: MBWZt-tt-Jc

Length: 28min 9sec (1689 seconds)

Published: Sun Nov 20 2022