tagged w/ Yellowstone National Park
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As we packed our snow mobiles with camera gear, food and water, the girls were nervous about their first time driving a snow mobile. We were a small group of 5, each on their own machine driving in a straight formation. I was traveling light this trip ….2 Video Cameras and 2 Still Cameras !
Our guide was first, Then myself and crew, as we started out of the lodge we immediately encountered a Bison Jam ! The Guide would Hand Signal Me, And I would pass them back to the crew as we needed to be in tight formation to safely pass the bison sharing little space between us. Watching their Big Eyes watching us several feet away within kicking distance was a bit concerning as I nervously throttled with one hand and took pictures with the other while trying not to crash into the guides ride in front of me! We encountered several fresh bird kills that our guide pointed out was a Lynx or BobCat… neither of which showed themselves to us. The Snow was nearing whiteout conditions at times, as we pressed on thru -10 to 18 degrees into the high country spotting trumpeter swans , Elk , Bison, Eagles , Coyotes, and Ravens which choose a single mate for life.
The wilderness was very harsh as we all wondered how life could even survive one day of a long winter to come. Our trek took us on Snow Coaches, Snow Mobiles, and SUV’s as we used every method to find the wildlife , but our target this trip were the wolves. I had many a trip with only glimpses of them at far distances, some not at all. A Blizzard was approaching and weather services were warning us of inevitable road and mountain pass closings, but we pressed on, and still no wolves.
Then we ran into a lonely Fox laying on a snow drift sleeping so deeply I could not wake it even with my most obnoxious noises. So I took pictures of the Sleeping fox, Video and Still, and as the storm blew in, the whiteout became very bad, winds topping 50 mph blew my Video Camera over and into a snow drift. I was tiring of the harsh conditions when over our personal radios our spotters yelled A Pack of wolves just got a kill !
We Packed up our gear and headed toward the pack, and very close were 16 wolves of the Druid Pack ripping something apart, as I nervously setup for HD video, A grey wolf and 2 black wolves were taking it apart . This Was my quest to find and see as the Harsh wintry background yielded a front row seat to the real deal unfolding before us. Some of the wolves were allowed to share in the spoils while others were not. And as quick as it began it was over, and getting dark when a ranger came and told us to leave the park immediately because they were closing the roads in preparation for the storm.
I took lead thru dangerous passes driving nearly blind the entire way as the excitement about the wolves subdued to the thought of surviving the journey back to tell about it ! The Russians were in a small vehicle behind us as we packed down the snow of wind drifts being blown in our face , obscuring the way forward. We were very concerned for the vehicles behind us, and each time their lights were not in view we waited nervously knowing that going back would be more terrifying than forward.
One tire off the road in spots meant thousand foot drops, I knew it was there and at times could not see it, while secretly wishing I did not know how close we were , Avalanches, rock slides ,high winds, I imagined my own Steven King Movie ,The Perfect SNOWSTORM !
Documentary, Film Maker, just releasing a sneak peak of "Portal To Nature" on DVD
Watch My Portal To NatureAs we packed our snow mobiles with camera gear, food and water, the girls were nervous... more
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Author Joy Ibsen of Trout Creek, MI will sign her latest book "Unafraid" and host a presentation at 7 p.m. (CT) on Monday, August 24, 2009 in the Danish Immigrant Museum in Elk Horn, Iowa.
A former resident of nearby Kimballton, IA, Ibsen will be singing and playing piano during a songfest that will include works from her first book "Songs of Denmark."
Co-authored by her late father, Rev. Harald Ibsen, "Unafraid" includes portions of sermons he delivered at the Immanuel Lutheran Church in Kimballton, IA, followed by a fiction story about how his words impacted local parishioners.
The event is sponsored by the Danish Brotherhood Lodge 341 and the Danish Immigrant Museum.
It include songfest of Danish-American songs using a recently refurnished piano donated by the famous late Danish comedian Victor Borge.
Joy Ibsen is past president of the Danish Immigrant Museum board of directors.
Call Clayton Nielsen at 1-712-764-4343 or Annette Andersen at 1-712-773-2025.
Danish Immigrant Museum in Elk Horn, IA
http://www.danishmuseum.orgAuthor Joy Ibsen of Trout Creek, MI will sign her latest book "Unafraid" and host a... more
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Two workers at Yellowstone National Park have been fired after being caught on a live webcam urinating into the Old Faithful geyser.
A 23-year-old man was fined $750 and placed on three years unsupervised probation for urinating, being off trail in a restricted area and taking items.
The man also was banned from Yellowstone for two years. The second employee's case is pending.
Park officials were called after someone watching a webcam on the geyser saw six employees leaving the trail and walking on Old Faithful.
Fortunately, the geyser was not erupting at the time, say reports.
Park management have today said such incidents were rare.Two workers at Yellowstone National Park have been fired after being caught on a live... more
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The wild buffalo herd of Yellowstone National Park represent the only genetically pure buffalo left in the world. They need to survive and be safe. Unfortunately, the Governor of Montana, Brian Schweitzer, has reinstituted a hunt, and in 2008 over 1,600 Yellowstone buffalo were killed. There are only about 2,000 of these wild buffalo remaining. This film, Hear The Buffalo, expresses the value of the Yellowstone wild buffalo herd, their critical importance to Native American culture, the abuses they currently undergo and is a heartfelt >plea for their protection.
Directed by Gene Bernofsky for Wold Wide Film Expedition.
Learn more here: http://www.buffalofieldcampaign.orgThe wild buffalo herd of Yellowstone National Park represent the only genetically pure... more
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The government is pursuing legal action against a Web site operator who has misrepresented the U.S. Geological Survey in a warning that Yellowstone National Park's supervolcano could erupt soon and that the area should be evacuated.
"We started to take action as soon as we found out about it," said Jessica Robertson of the USGS. She said the agency was notified of the problem late last week.
The matter has been referred to the solicitor's office of the USGS, which is pursuing charges of impersonating a federal official as well as violation of the agency's trademark.
"The main issue we have is we don't want people to believe it's coming from us," Robertson said.The government is pursuing legal action against a Web site operator who has... more
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Hundreds of earthquakes rippled through Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming, in late December and early January, prompting fears that the shaking might trigger dangerous steam explosions.
Magma and steam permeate the rock beneath Yellowstone, and the motion of these fluids is thought to be responsible for the thousands of small earthquakes recorded in and around the park each year.
Crater evidence - Yellowstone, which sits atop a supervolcano, is pockmarked with craters thought to have been produced this way, and geologists estimate an explosion big enough to make a 100-metre crater happens there about every 200 years.
At the time of writing, though, the swarm was subsiding with no reports of such an event. "It hasn't stopped, but it has reduced markedly in the last couple of days," said Robert Smith of the University of Utah on Monday.
There are no signs of any on the way, either, said Smith, who monitors Yellowstone's geologic activity.
The quakes appear to be concentrated along a fault beneath the park. Further analysis should reveal whether they were triggered by forces associated with the fault, activity of hot fluids beneath the surface, or some other cause, he says.Hundreds of earthquakes rippled through Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming, in late... more
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The recent earthquake swarm underneath Yellowstone National Park appears to be slowing down considerably.
It's good news for the people at the Yellowstone Volcano Observatory who monitored close to 500 small earthquakes in the area during a six-day stretch. It had been the most intense swarm of earthquakes in Yellowstone since 1985.
"Everybody was mobilized," Jacob Lowenstern told 9NEWS on Monday.
Yellowstone National Park normally sees at least 1,000 earthquakes every year.
"We saw half of a year's earthquakes in less than a week," Lowenstern added.
Experts say it was the most intense swarm in 24 years.
Let's just hope this isn't the calm before the storm...The recent earthquake swarm underneath Yellowstone National Park appears to be slowing... more
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The last full-scale eruption of the Yellowstone Supervolcano, the Lava Creek eruption, ejected approximately 240 cubic miles of rock and dust into the sky; obviously this didn't bode well for our planet causing the extinction of a great number of species.
You'll be pleased to know that 250 earthquakes have taken place at Yellowstone over the last two days, "They're certainly not normal," said Robert Smith, a professor of geophysics at the University of Utah. "We haven't had earthquakes in this energy or extent in many years."
"This is an active volcanic and tectonic area, and these are the kinds of things we have to pay attention to," Smith said. "We might be seeing something precursory."
Watch live reports of the earthquakes at the link and if we are unlucky enough to have Yelllowstone blow its top, then I bid you all farewell.
http://www.seis.utah.edu/req2webdir/recenteqs/Maps/Yellowstone.html?The last full-scale eruption of the Yellowstone Supervolcano, the Lava Creek eruption,... more
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Apparently a volcano which erupted at Yellowstone National Park (about 650,000 years ago) could still be active.
Bill McGuire, professor of geohazards at the Benfield Greig Hazard Research Centre at the University College of London says it could bring, "the bitter cold of volcanic winter to planet Earth. Mankind may become extinct."
(Make every minute count, people.)
Check out the Supervolcano link:
http://www.unmuseum.org/supervol.htm
And the disturbingly realistic video at The Agitator (above):
http://www.theagitator.com/2008/12/30/uh-oh-3/Apparently a volcano which erupted at Yellowstone National Park (about 650,000 years... more
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Yellowstone has recently been rocked with unusual amounts of small quakes. For the third straight day Yellowstone park was jostled with little tremors which totaled to about more than 250 tremors altogether.
Scientists are baffled with these recent events, and even accepted this phenomenon as highly unusual.
The highest recorded earthquake was of a 3.8 magnitude.Yellowstone has recently been rocked with unusual amounts of small quakes. For the... more
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By BRETT FRENCH
Of The Gazette Staff
Amphibian populations have crashed as isolated water sources have dried up in Yellowstone National Park's lower Lamar Valley, according to recently published research.
"This is strong evidence that climate change is altering one of the most protected areas in the United States," said Sarah McMenamin, a Stanford University biologist who co-authored the research published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
"It's of course very depressing," said Liz Hadly, McMenamin's adviser and co-author, who started working in Yellowstone in 1982. "Even in this place that is so protected and enjoyed ... the kinds of temperature changes we're seeing on the planet are having a significant impact. Even this remote place is not immune from global change."
Amphibians are an indicator species, the proverbial canary in the coal mine, and their demise may predict problems to come for other species in the Yellowstone ecosystem, McMenamin said. By BRETT FRENCH
Of The Gazette Staff
Amphibian populations have crashed as isolated... more
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Amphibian populations at Yellowstone - the world's oldest national park - are in steep decline, a major study shows.
The authors link this to the drying out of wetlands where the animals live and breed, which is in turn being driven by long-term climate change.
The results, reported in the journal PNAS, suggest that climate warming has already disrupted one of the best-protected ecosystems on Earth.
The park covers some 9,000 sq km (3,500 sq miles) in the western United States.
It lies mostly within the state of Wyoming, but spills over into Montana and Idaho. The area has been protected for more than a century; US congress granted Yellowstone national park status on 1 March 1872.
'There is a pretty substantial signal of climate change in this region.'
Sarah McMenamin, Stanford University
Visitors flock there to see its geysers, hot springs and bubbling mud pots, fuelled by ongoing volcanism. The park's vast forests and grasslands are also home to grizzly bears, wolves and bison.
But it is to much less conspicuous inhabitants - frogs, toads and salamanders - that scientists look for early indications of environment degradation.
Four amphibian species are native to the park: the blotched tiger salamander (Ambystoma tigrinum melanostictum), the boreal chorus frog (Pseudacris triseriata maculata), the Columbia spotted frog (Rana luteiventris) and the boreal toad (Bufo boreas boreas).
The lower Lamar Valley in northern Yellowstone harbours countless small, fishless ponds - ideal for amphibian breeding and larval development.
Downward trend
Between 1992 and 1993, researchers surveyed 46 of these "kettle" ponds, which are re-filled in spring by groundwater and snow melt running down from the hills.
The "kettle" ponds are ideal habitats for amphibians. When a team from Stanford University in California repeated this survey between 2006 and 2008, the number of permanently dry ponds had increased four-fold.
Of the ponds that remained, the proportion supporting amphibians had declined significantly.
In addition, three of the four native amphibian species had suffered major declines in numbers. The number of species found in each location - the "species richness" - had also dropped off markedly.
Amphibian populations at Yellowstone - the world's oldest national park - are in steep... more
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On Friday, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service took steps to revive a 2007 proposal to remove the gray wolf of the northern Rockies from the Endangered Species List. Environmentalists howled, calling it a last-gasp effort by the Bush administration to delist wolves.
The Fish and Wildlife Service had officially delisted the wolves in March, and afterward wildlife officials in Wyoming, Idaho and Montana developed management plans that included hunting seasons. In Wyoming, anyone could shoot a wolf at any time in most of the state.
A coalition of conservation groups sued in federal court. In July, Federal Judge Donald W. Molloy issued an injunction that put the wolves back on the endangered list.
Now Fish and Wildlife is reopening its plan for public comment, making clear that it believes the wolves have recovered sufficiently to allow the states to take over their management. Further litigation is a certainty.
"All wolf stuff will always be in court," says Ed Bangs, the agency's wolf recovery coordinator. Taking the long view, he says that for thousands of years, wolves have been both romanticized and demonized. "Wolf stuff has nothing to do with reality; it's all about symbolism." On Friday, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service took steps to revive a 2007 proposal to... more
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The Bush administration's authorization of increased snowmobile use in Yellowstone National Park violates the fundamental legal responsibility of the National Park Service to protect the clean air, wildlife, and natural quiet of national parks for the benefit of all visitors, a federal court ruled today.The Bush administration's authorization of increased snowmobile use in Yellowstone... more
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"The National Park Service wanted to close a section of Yellowstone Park in the wintertime because of the risk of avalanche. No way, protested businesses in Cody, Wyo., that wanted to promote more tourism.
The spat did not stay local for long. It ended up in Washington, where the Bush White House intervened late last year and sided with the businesses, according to officials familiar with the fight.
A final decision, announced Monday by Park Service regional director Mike Snyder, will keep the park's eastern entrance open to snow-going vehicles throughout the winter. The cost to taxpayers could run into the millions of dollars for a decision to accommodate a small number of tourists.
"This clearly falls into the basket of politics and the administration trumping science and what's best for the national park system," says Tim Stevens, who manages Yellowstone issues for the National Parks Conservation Association, a private watchdog group. "It clearly shows political manipulation.""The National Park Service wanted to close a section of Yellowstone Park in the... more
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More than half of Yellowstone National Park's bison herd has died since last fall, forcing the government to suspend its annual slaughter program.
More than 700 of the iconic animals starved or otherwise died on the mountainsides during an unusually harsh winter, and more than 1,600 were shot by hunters or sent to slaughterhouses in a disease-control effort, according to National Park Service figures.
Government officials say the slaughter prevents the spread of the disease brucellosis from the Yellowstone bison to cattle on land near the park. Brucellosis can cause miscarriages, infertility and reduced milk production in domestic cattle.
But critics call the culling an overreaction. There is no documented case of the disease passing from bison to cattle, they said.
"I mean, it's hype, it's a hysteria," Mease said. "And it's not a fatal disease."More than half of Yellowstone National Park's bison herd has died since last fall,... more
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Rick stands knee-deep in snow, the freezing air steaming around him during a blizzard. He chooses to spend his retirement observing wolf packs, surrounded by the breathtaking backdrop of Yellowstone National Park. He has worked his way up and down the same valley everyday for the last 7 years and is one of a new breed of (obsessed?) nature enthusiasts, the wolf watchers……… The modern era, capitalism and industrialization, saw the American relationship with nature and animals change at a never before seen rate. Our relationship with animals is now idealized and distorted, and we constantly mourn their loss from our everyday lives. Although we keep the animal in a state of perpetual dying by representations in mass media globally, zoos, parks and pets, these actions are more to further enforce their marginalization and subjugation to human authority. The Yellowstone wolf watchers seek out their contact in the more authentic setting of Yellowstone National Park, even though this is not the definition of wilderness they believe it to be. The wolf watchers are under the same cultural influences that occur throughout society and result in their scopophilic fascination with wolves, but this voyeurism also facilitates a contribution to a unique scientific study of this historically mythologized and only recently reintroduced animal.
Rick stands knee-deep in snow, the freezing air steaming around him during a blizzard.... more
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Bees, birds, rabbits... A pattern?/////////excerpt////////A new study by the Bronx Zoo-based Wildlife Conservation Society found that jack rabbits living in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem have apparently hopped into oblivion. The study, which appears in the latest issue of the journal Oryx, also speculates that the disappearance of jack rabbits may be having region-wide impacts on a variety of other prey species and their predators.
According to the study, historical records from more than 130 years ago indicate that white-tailed jack rabbits were once locally abundant in Greater Yellowstone, a 60,000 square kilometer (23,166 square mile) ecosystem that contains both Grand Teton and Yellowstone National Parks. However, the WCS study found that no jack rabbit sightings could be confirmed in Yellowstone since 1991 and only three in Grand Teton since 1978.
No one knows what caused the rabbits to disappear, according to the study's lead author, Dr. Joel Berger, a Wildlife Conservation Society conservationist, and professor at the University of Montana. "It could be disease, extreme weather, predation or other factors," Dr. Berger said. "Since the rabbits blipped off without knowledge, there has simply been no way to get at the underlying cause."/////////end of excerpt.
Bees, birds, rabbits... A pattern?/////////excerpt////////A new study by the Bronx... more
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Explosive new video, now in a short, 4+ minute version, blasts the justification for Alaskas current aerial wolf hunting program and rallies voters to end it. Using testimony from a Board of Game member, this video exposes the fallacy behind Governor Sarah Palins claim that predator control is based on sound science. Declarations that the program is for the benefit of subsistence hunters are shattered with documentation showing that sport and trophy hunters take up to 73% of prey in areas where aerial wolf hunting has taken place. End Aerial Wolf Hunting - Short Version rallies support for H.R. 3663, legislation now being considered in the U.S. Congress which will close the loophole in the Federal Airborne Hunting Act that has been exploited to allow this practice to continue. Five years in the making, this video exposes the truth about the stranglehold the hunting lobby has on wildlife management in Alaska. Explosive new video, now in a short, 4+ minute version, blasts the justification for... more
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Explosive new video, now in a short, 4+ minute version, blasts the justification for Alaskas current aerial wolf hunting program and rallies voters to end it. Using testimony from a Board of Game member, this video exposes the fallacy behind Governor Sarah Palins claim that predator control is based on sound science. Declarations that the program is for the benefit of subsistence hunters are shattered with documentation showing that sport and trophy hunters take up to 73% of prey in areas where aerial wolf hunting has taken place. End Aerial Wolf Hunting - Short Version rallies support for H.R. 3663, legislation now being considered in the U.S. Congress which will close the loophole in the Federal Airborne Hunting Act that has been exploited to allow this practice to continue. Five years in the making, this video exposes the truth about the stranglehold the hunting lobby has on wildlife management in Alaska. Explosive new video, now in a short, 4+ minute version, blasts the justification for... more
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