All right.
Good morning, everyone.
Welcome back to our live broadcast series
here in Yellowstone National Park.
I'm Ranger Jake.
I'm part of the social media team
here in Yellowstone National Park.
I just want to do a quick description
of where we're at.
Behind me,
we have the Mammoth Hot Springs.
We're on the boardwalk area,
the upper terraces.
You can see we got some fresh snow.
This week we had a big storm a few days ago
that closed the road temporarily.
Beautiful day today,
the sun is out, blue sky,
we're very happy that you're able
to join us virtually here.
Before we get started,
we do want to address
the big elephant in the room.
We've been getting a lot of questions
about access to the park
in relation to COVID-19.
I got three quick things
I want to share with everyone.
The first thing is the park is open
in the same way that it would be
this time of year on a normal basis.
Over snow travels finished for the season,
plowing has started
and that's why a lot of the interior roads
are closed in preparation for the spring.
That means the only road that's opened
this time of year for vehicles
is going to be from the north entrance
in Gardiner, Montana.
That road will lead you here
where we're standing in Mammoth Hot Springs.
You can continue on out towards Lamar Valley
if you're looking for wildlife.
The second thing,
if you do decide to visit the park,
please follow the CDC guidelines
that have been released recently.
Just as a quick reminder,
first thing,
wash your hands with soap and water
for 20 seconds.
Don't touch your face,
cough or sneeze into your elbow.
Practice social distancing.
There's a lot of wide-open spaces out here.,
if you do come,
we encourage you to take advantage
of that wide-open space.
If you're not feeling well just stay home.
The reason we're asking you to do this
is because it's going to protect yourself.
It's going to protect other visitors
and it'll also protect the employees
of Yellowstone National Park.
The last thing,
I mentioned we had a short closure of the road
due to that storm.
It's always a good idea to check our website
for current conditions
before you come to the park,
and the current situation with the COVID-19
is an even greater reminder
as to why to do that.
Things are changing here pretty quickly.
We seem to get new information every day.
If we do get any updates that changes
access to the park
or whatever is going on,
all of that information
will be available
on our website
and the link to that we'll drop below.
For folks that are just joining us,
if you haven't been following
along with this year,
this is the 25th anniversary
of the Wolf Reintroduction to the park.
To commemorate that we've been hosting
this series of Facebook Lives.
We've done two previous to this
but basically every Tuesday
at 11:00 AM local time
we're broadcasting from the park.
If you missed the first two weeks,
we can drop links to both of those
in the comment section as well.
I encourage you to check those out.
Also, when we started planning these,
we had no idea that the current situation
of how things were going to unveil
the way that they are now
but given the current circumstances,
we hope to plan in the future
to use this tool more often
for the people that are staying at home
and they're social distancing,
we want to be able to share
Yellowstone National Park with you
and this Facebook Live
is a great tool to do that.
We encourage you to keep joining us
during the month of March
for the Wolf Reintroduction lives
but we'll try to see
if we can share in other ways.
With all that, thank you so much for joining.
I'm going to turn it over to Doug Smith.
He's our senior wildlife biologist in the park.
I'll let Doug introduce
the other speaker for the day.
I'm going to jump behind the camera,
monitor comments and questions.
When the talks are done,
I'm going to do my best to answer
and ask as many questions with the speaker
as we can today.
With that, Doug,
thanks so much for joining us.
Thanks, Jake.
I'm biologist Doug.
I've been with the wolf program
since the beginning.
This is our third installment
of the celebration of the return of wolves
to Yellowstone 25 years ago.
One thing that was very unexpected
is how visible the wolves would be.
We have a gentleman here
that's worked in Yellowstone
with the wolf program for the last 24 years,
15 years in Denali.
Basically, he's observed wolves probably
more than any other person in history,
Aboriginal people,
modern days people.
He has dedicated his life to being out there
every day watching wolves.
He has tales and stories
that he's going to share with you.
This week in our third installment,
this is all about what wolves
have been to people, been to Yellowstone,
how visibly then,
we didn't think that we'd see them.
I would honor to introduce Rick McIntyre,
a colleague of mine for over 20 years,
who's observed wolves more than anybody.
He's going to talk to us today about
what he's seen over these last few years.
Rick.
Let me adjust here a little bit.
All right.
Okay, thanks a lot, Doug.
I started in Yellowstone in the spring of 1994.
That was the year before the reintroduction.
I was in the naturalist division at the time,
meaning I was the type of Ranger
that did the programs for visitors
and the campgrounds, amphitheaters,
nature trails, things like that.
My title was Wolf Interpreter
because all of my programs were on that.
At that time before Doug Smith started,
I think I was the only park service employee
that had been around wolves in other parks,
specifically Denali and Glacier.
All of my programs are on at first
the possibility of a reintroduction
and then once it was approved the reality of it.
When I came back to the park
the following spring,
I had worked
in the desert of Big Bend that winter.
I knew that the wolves
had already been released.
I considered that since these wolves
have come down from a part of Canada,
wherever there was intensive
human hunting and trapping,
they'd be very wary of people
and therefore very hard to see.
I thought realistically,
even though I was going to be working
in Yellowstone for the summer,
my hope, my goal was if I could just see
one wolf for the summer,
I would be very happy.
On the first full day in my Park,
I saw the six members
of the Crystal Creek pack.
One of the three packs that had been released
about five or six weeks before,
that was in Lamar Valley.
It turned out for that
first part of that summer,
we saw that pack all the time,
the parents, the four yearlings.
We didn't really expect that visitors
would have that much chance
of seeing them either
but immediately, the word was passed
since I was the Ranger in uniform on the scene
and I would have a spotting scope set up,
people would come over
as to look for my scope.
It just became a big, big, big thing
that was unexpected.
It was about that time that I began to realize
some of the issues of the significance
of having wolves back in Yellowstone,
in the sense of what originally
Yellowstone was meant to be.
In a sense, Yellowstone was a promise
to the American people
to preserve the best of the natural features
in the wildlife of this part of our country.
The early Rangers felt that
the wolves were no good
and they should be killed off.
Pretty much everyone else in the country
agreed with it at that time.
They actually killed the last wolves
back in 1923.
In '95, once they were back,
that was in a sense,
making the promise of Yellowstone
the reality of Yellowstone.
As time went on, we began to do
a lot of research on the wolves.
I switched over to working
in the wolf project in '98.
We've done many scientific studies,
we've published many scientific papers,
but I think for me,
the most significant aspect
of what we've been learning about wolves
is how wolves here we can study them,
not just as a population,
not just in the big picture,
but as individuals.
Let me just tell you a little bit about
some of the individual wolves
that I've known here.
The two of the original Canadian wolves
brought down in the Druid Peak pack
were sisters, 40, and 42,
along with their mother,
a third sister as well,
and then an outside male.
It turned out that those two sisters
had very different personalities.
40 had a very violent,
very aggressive personality,
probably there's a chance that
Queen Cercei in Game of Thrones
was based on 40.
They were very much the same type of females,
whereas 42 was the total opposite,
very cooperative,
very easy to work with for the other females.
40 was so aggressive that she drove out
her own mother and the third sister.
For years,
42 had to put up with all this violence
and all this aggression.
We think on two different years,
there was a pretty good chance that 40
had killed her sister's pups.
During that time,
42 built an alliance
with some of the younger females
in the spring of 2000.
I saw a 40 going up to her sister's den,
and I was very concerned
because I thought that her intent
was to kill her sister's pups once more.
When we came up the next morning
we saw 40 on the side of the road,
drenched in blood,
had many many wolf bites in her
and very soon after that
she died of multiple bites,
actually died of blood loss.
We think what happened was that
40 had gone up there,
did something to threaten her sister's pups,
and maybe for the first time 42
fought back against her sister.
Some of her female allies
were there at the time,
and by the now based
on the number of bites on 40,
it was pretty clear that she had been attacked
by a number of other females.
They deposed 40, she died of her injuries
and then 42 brought her pups
over to her sister's den.
There was another female that had pups
brought them over as well.
She adopted and raised four of these pups
that year despite all of the bad blood
between the two sisters.
That's an example of totally different
personalities in wolves
even though they were sisters.
Another example would be
the alpha male at that time
was one of our most famous wolves,
Number 21.
He was legendary for having never lost a fight
with another wolf.
Pretty much invincible in battle
but as far as we know,
he never killed a defeated opponent.
He was the epitome of what an alpha male
really should be in the sense that
he totally understood that his position
was such that if his family was threatened,
he was supposed to do something about it
in the sense of defend it with his life.
Also, if his family was hungry,
he was supposed to do something about that
in the sense of going out on a hunt.
He was the classic alpha male personality.
He had a nephew known as 302
who showed up in the territory back in 2003,
had been born to 21's sister.
If there was ever a wolf that ever lived,
that was the exact opposite of 21, it was 302.
He had seemingly no sense of responsibility
or anything along those lines.
That first mating season when he showed up,
he got three of 21's daughter's pregnant
and then abandoned them.
That spring when those pups were born,
21 had to raise five that had been born
to his nephew, but for 302,
he eventually turned his life around
after 21's way,
he joined the Druid pack.
He eventually left that
and formed his own pack
and actually became a very good alpha male
in his old age.
It also shows that roles can actually change
over the course of their life change,
how they behave and how they relate
to the other wolves in their family.
To finish up, I've been thinking about
what can we say at this point,
25 years into the reintroduction?
Just a few hours ago,
I was in Lamar Valley
and I was watching the Junction Butte pack.
Those wolves are descended
from one of the very first packs,
the Crystal Creek pack.
We saw 14 of them.
The pups were playing.
They went to an old carcass.
They were chewing on some bones in an outlier.
The adults were resting in the snow.
In some ways,
maybe that was just the average typical wolf
spotting here in Yellowstone.
All the visitors that were there,
all of us that were on the scene,
it was just really a great moment
to be able to see wild wolves
behaving naturally
in Yellowstone National Park.
In an effort to try to sum up this,
I thought of a native American man
that many of us know here, Scott Frazier.
He and several other native people
over the years have done
wolf blessing ceremonies.
They did that on the day that the wolves
arrived back in 1995
and they've come back every year
to do new blessings.
I remember one day,
he said something very profound.
He said, "It's good to be part of
bringing something back
rather than taking something away."
I think that's really the story of
Yellowstone Wolf Reintroduction.
We brought something back
that never should have been taken away.
Thanks so much for that story.
That's really awesome, Rick.
Do you want to jump around on the front
and we'll take some questions
for the both of you?
I'm going to join Rick at the end here
for both of us to answer questions, either one.
All right.
Just touching on, you mentioned
when wolves were first introduced to the park,
you were thinking they'll be
very wary of people
and that sightings wouldn't be that often.
How likely is it for someone to see wolves
if they were to come
to Yellowstone National Park?
Well, I can answer that
because I'm out there every day still.
If you have several days for your trip
and you asked around a little bit from the-
at the visitor center and the Rangers,
they'll give you some suggestions.
If you have several days,
it's very, very likely that you'll see them.
There are many local people
that come out every day.
They're happy to help new folks,
happy to suggest where the likely places
are to see them
and then as of this morning,
for an example, once the wolves were found,
the regulars put up spotting scopes
and they're very, very happy
to let people look through.
A few days should do it.
We didn't think they'd be visible at all
when we released them.
I remember the first few times we spotted them,
we thought it would be a rare occurrence
and now it's turning to be probably
the best place in the world
to see free-ranging wolves.
Do either of you have a story
or maybe both of you have a story
that you've been able to share with someone
who maybe wanted that--
coming to Yellowstone and seeing wolves
was one of their bucket list items
and getting to share that experience
with the visitors?
Is there any moment like that that sticks out
in your mind that you'd like to share?
You want to go first?
Well, I mean, wolves kind of have a mystique.
They've always been hard to study.
Mostly, they've been relegated
to wilderness areas and remote areas.
No one thought that we'd see them that much.
We get a hard time from biologists
from far north of Canada and Alaska
that we get to watch wolves
drinking our coffee
but it hasn't taken away
the mystique of the wolves.
They're still special.
They're still not very many places.
I'm 25 years into this
and people are still coming,
streaming in to see them
because it's real nature.
It's real life and we don't get that anymore
in what I think is a very artificial world.
This has been a touchstone
to a lot of people for nature
and so it means a great deal to a lot of people,
the world even.
Over my years here, I've had the--
Well, I'm not sure if privilege
is the right way to say it,
but I've worked with Make-A-Wish
and I think they've sent me three kids
over the years that I've been here
and that was their wish to see wolves.
We were able to help all of them.
There was a wildlife professor from Japan,
an elderly man and he had terminal cancer
and he had the same wish
and we were able to help him.
Many, many people,
it's so emotional
when they see a pack of wolves,
they start crying,
especially if it's ones that
they've heard about here in Yellowstone.
Sometimes I almost compare it
to the excitement of seeing
your favorite rock band.
It would be like Doug Smith
seeing Led Zeppelin
or something like that,
pretty much at that level.
Right, Doug?
Absolutely.
It seems like a lot of the comments
and questions are coming in
are just thanking both of you,
especially you, Rick,
all the time that you spent out in the field.
There's a lot of people in here in the comments
that are saying you changed my family's life
and your voice is going to be etched
in their brain forever.
That's really cool to be on the backside of this.
I think with that,
we'll probably just end it.
I have one question for Rick myself.
Rick, what was your record number of days,
your string where you never missed
a day going out?
Could you talk about that a little bit?
It was a little over 15 years.
Every day.
Every day,
How did you sustain an effort like that?
Well, I wanted to go out.
If you wanted to punish me back then
you could have told me to work all day
on my forums and stuff.
Doug made me fill out a lot of forms
when I used to work with--
Data.
Data, yes.
He's a bureaucrat.
What can you say?
[laughter]
Was it ever something you dreaded
or were like, "Geez, I have to go out today,"
or was every day exciting?
No, I was raring to go.
It was a long time.
When I was younger I hated getting up.
I would pretend to be sick
so I wouldn't have to go to school
and get up early
but I was very, very motivated
on the really long days of the year.
I had to get up at 3:15 in order to get ready
and be out at first light so no,
you couldn't stop me.
I was very motivated.
There's a famous quote that I think
applies to this situation.
80% of success is just showing up
and that's really all I did for all those years.
I just showed up
then the wolves did the rest.
He's also probably observed wild boars
more than any human in history,
so what a great run, thanks, Rick.
We appreciate it.
Glad you're still out there.
Thank you.
We'll see you next week.