animals | Yellowstone Treasures

May

Muskrat in a kettle pond

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Can’t resist sharing this cute picture of a muskrat in a Yellowstone kettle pond with you. What’s a kettle pond, you may ask? Here’s what the Yellowstone Treasures glossary has to say: “A pond formed in a depression caused by the ground collapsing when a buried block of glacial ice melted. Also called kettle hole.” The melting snow of the caption to this National Park Service photo is just this past winter’s. The hole is much older.

Kettle ponds created by melting snow are popular destinations for a variety of animals, including sleepy muskrats. pic.twitter.com/STpNtkCbFJ
— YellowstoneNPS (@YellowstoneNPS) May 23, 2014

You can find out more about how glaciers reshape the landscape on the illustrated pages 311-312 of the “Geological History” chapter in the guidebook.

—Editor Beth

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Jul

Lions & tigers & bears, oh, my!

Categories: On the Web, Wildlife

Tags: animals, wolves

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For an amazing list of animals just sighted during a very few days in Yellowstone, click on “More” at the bottom of the post for Day Four of the South Salem, New York, Wolf Conservation Center trip, at: http://nywolf.blogspot.com/2010/07/day-four-in-yellowstone.html#0.

We should all be so lucky! I suspect they had good advice about where to look.

Feb

Bears out already

Categories: Wildlife, Winter

Tags: animals, bears, grizzlies, Old Faithful, snow

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I just read today that both blacks and grizzlies are coming out of their dens a little early this year [2010]. It’s not really surprising, since the snow pack is way below normal, and it has been relatively warm in Yellowstone. Tracks and bears have been sighted in both Grand Teton and Yellowstone, starting in early February, according to the Jackson Hole News and Guide.

It saddens me to look at the Old Faithful Webcam—which I do nearly every day—because the viewing benches should be deep in snow this time of the year, but they usually haven’t been. And this can mean increased fire danger and hardship for all the animals, unless the next few months reverse the trend.

All posts tagged animals

Muskrat in a kettle pond

Lions & tigers & bears, oh, my!

Bears out already