2020—A Most Memorable Experience

A pair of young wolves frolick in the snow as the mists from the nearby hot springs drift by them in Yellowstone National Park in January 2018. As a photographer, in particular as a wildlife photographer, I have been exceedingly lucky to be in the right place at the right time to document some incredible moments. These moments are forever seared in my memory and I am privileged to share some of the images from those moments. Without a doubt, one of my most memorable photographic experiences, as well as one of my top life experiences, took place almost three years ago in January 2018 in Yellowstone National Park when we watched the 8-Mile Wolf Pack as they played, slept, and fed on a Bison they had killed earlier in the day. I have been thinking about that experience a lot lately after learning that, as improbable as it sounds to me, the Gray Wolf was de-listed as an endangered species. And, I was disheartened to learn that a visitor to Grand Teton National Park shot and killed a Gray Wolf in late October. But I had good news Friday morning, talking with a friend who lives in Colorado. I learned that Colorado voters approved a proposition to reintroduce wolves there. And, although on my recent visit to Yellowstone National Park in early November, I didn’t photograph any wolves, on our last day there, we heard the Wapiti Pack singing and then watched them through binoculars as they rested on a slope far in the distance. Seeing and hearing wolves! Always a memorable experience.