Lamar Canyon Family Portrait, Yellowstone

Spent a couple of days at Yellowstone watching and photographing the Lamar Canyon wolves. Saw them everyday, however, at quite a distance, from 300-500 yards to a couple of miles away. This pack just suffered a huge loss of the Beta Male, who was killed by hunter last week when the pack ventured outside the park. The photos here portrait a contented, harmonious, happy family. They had just got a deer the night before and each of them had its full belly looking like a beach ball.

The sun was not cooperating. It was cloudy and a storm was moving in. Given the distance, I was glad to get anything at all.

1DX, 500f4, 2X III, 1/1600, f9, ISO3200, +2/3 EV in AV mode.

very nice, too bad about the loss of the male

Nice shots, it is sad for the male. I guess they are legal to hunt.

Awesome captures!

From your comments, it sounds like you been tracking the pack.

Really like # 2, he was taking to you. Did you get the message, stay awy for your safety..

Awesome !!!

Yes, many folks are tracking the 3 packs in the Northern range and we could follow their movements almost daily from Yellowstonereports.com​, which is a subscription service at $20/year. These photos were taken at a great distance about 300 yards, which is 3x the distance the Park service's guidelines. In contrary to the myth, wolves do not pose danger to people. It's us who pose danger to them and kill them!

Nice pictures. BUT there is a reason why our forefathers tried to wipe them out.

HOBO_sm wrote in post #15330282
Nice pictures. BUT there is a reason why our forefathers tried to wipe them out.

Yes, stupidity.


A real shame that this beautiful pack lost one of their members to a goofy hunter.

Mike55 wrote in post #15331576
Yes, stupidity.


A real shame that this beautiful pack lost one of their members to a goofy hunter.

Thank you for speaking up for these wolves. They live mostly in the park and have not caused any harm to anyone or livestock. Defenders ofvWildlife will pay and compensate or any livestock lost outside the park. Wolves live in family and when one of the alphas or both get killed, the pups will die and the rest of the pack broke up. Millions of vistors come to the park hoping for a glimpse of the Lamar Canyon pack. Two more bullets and the pack will be gone and those of us who want to photograph them will come home empty handed.

Yes, there is great outrage because Montana never created a buffer around Yellowstone for the wolf hunting season. A good article on the dead wolf (there's up to seven of them now):

http://green.blogs.nyt​imes.com …f-hunts-near-yellowstone/

Hunters have a choice to not shoot collared wolves. But they do anyway (many blame their personal problems on wolves...a way to get a small semblance of control in their unhappy lives).

Perhaps there should be initiatives to restore other species to their historical ranges?

Mike55 wrote in post #15331576
Yes, stupidity.

A real shame that this beautiful pack lost one of their members to a goofy hunter.

Just because you are against hunting does not give you the right to call a hunter goofy. IF it were not for the hunters we would have even less wildlife to view than we do now.

Excellent captures. So far, seven of the wolves have been shot and killed, two of them had on collars, just 'cause they strayed outside the borders of the park. Do you think they know where the borders are? The hunters/ranchers sure do and just lay and wait for them. I guess by this rant you can tell which side of the border I favor.

HOBO_sm wrote in post #15334231
Just because you are against hunting does not give you the right to call a hunter goofy. IF it were not for the hunters we would have even less wildlife to view than we do now.

Hunters along with trappers were what killed off wolves to begin with. So excuse me for not congratulating the guy who intentionality started his house on fire, then hosed it off.

For those of you who enjoy to have wolves in our National Park so that we can see them and photograph them, this book is a wonderful book to read that documented the restoration of Yellowstone many wildlife and plant species since the re-introduction of the wolves to Yellowstone. Doug Smith is a biologist and leader of the Wolf Project.

http://www.greateryell​owstonescience.org …es/YS_13_4_Fisc​her_sm.pdf

There is a reason for bio-diversity. Sure we can kill off all predators on the land and sea, that is pretty easy with modern technologies. Restoring what we killed off in the past is a lot harder and in many cases not possible.