A collared Yellowstone Druid Peak Pack member in 2000 (Photo by Doug Smith)

Wolf-watchers eagerly followed the epic struggles of the pack as intently as any reality television show and their dramatic exploits have been featured in many documentaries including Return of the Wolf and In the Valley of the Wolves.  In their heyday in 2001, the Druids numbered an amazing thirty-seven wolves and visitors watched in awe and delight when they paraded across Lamar Valley.

As Yellowstone Wolf Project Leader Doug Smith wrote in his book, Decade of the Wolf: “The sheer size of the Druid Peak Pack in 2001—along with the fact that they often lived, right out in front of us, what seemed like epic lives, full of struggle and conquest—made for some of the most unforgettable encounters of the past ten years.”

Sadly this legendary pack, which became leaderless last fall with the death of its alpha female, may soon be regulated to memory and pages in history books. After struggling with disease, invasion from other wolf packs, and malnutrition, the pack has dwindled to a sole survivor—black yearling female 690F, herself mange-ridden and food stressed.

During an interview this past January, Smith commented on the Druid’s condition and pronounced them in bad shape. Since then their decline has worsened rapidly. Smith observed, “we saw them eating snow and that’s a bad sign for sure.” Last month, the alpha male wandered away (some speculate that he left because the only mating partners remaining were his daughters). Adding even more challenges, the Silver Pack moved into the Druid’s territory, and killed at least one known pack member.

The disappearance of the Druids certainly marks the end of an era, but the torch of the reigning Yellowstone pack is being passed on through the unsympathetic race of natural selection. Perhaps Mollie’s Pack, with its amazing ability to hunt bison and its magnificent alpha male, 495M, the largest wolf ever recorded in Yellowstone at 143 pounds, will be the next to dominate the park—and gain a celebrity following.

The Roosevelt Arch at the entrance to Yellowstone National Park (photo by Beth Pratt)

Oddly enough, as Ken Burns and Dayton Duncan noted in their recent documentary, The National Parks: America’s Best Idea, debate on the visionary bill was minimal, and “nowhere in either chamber did anyone suggest that they were taking a historic step or setting a far-reaching precedent that future generations might look back upon in gratitude.”

Current and future generations should be eternally grateful to the pen strokes of President Grant on March 1, 1872. For over 130 years, the magnificent landscapes and cultural heritages of our national parks have inspired countless people. And numerous countries have emulated the national park model—the founding principles behind “America’s best idea” continue to reverberate across the globe.

Today, the national park system protects an array of natural and cultural treasures in 392 sites that encompass 84 million acres of land and 4 million acres of oceans and other waters.  Almost 275 million people tour the parks annually, ranging from the largest at Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve, in Alaska (13.2 million acres), to the smallest at Thaddeus Kosciuszko National Memorialin Pennsylvania (0.02 acres).

Our national parks furnish us with peace and inspiration, and consistently evoke joy in those who visit.  The remarkable spiritual and healing capabilities of our parks cannot be understated. Indeed, these special places have provided, in the words of naturalist John Muir, something essential to our soul: “Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in where nature may heal and cheer and give strength to the body and soul.”

Celebrate the birthday of Yellowstone—and of America’s best idea—by visiting a park today. Visit the official website of the National Park Service for more information. If you can’t visit, you can connect with your favorite park via webcam.

Jonathan Jarvis speaking at the APPL conference in San Diego (Photo by Beth Pratt)

During the Association of Partners for Public Lands conference yesterday, Jarvis updated a standing-room only audience about the latest issues facing the NPS, from climate change to firearms in parks. In our interview, he elaborated on some of his priorities for the agency.

You have called climate change one of the greatest challenges the National Park Service has ever faced. How do you see the service addressing this issue?

The NPS has a unique responsibility with climate change in protecting the special places we have been entrusted to care for. So much of the climate change issue is framed in terms of green energy and carbon sequestration, but we also have to deal with the preservation aspect.

We fulfill many significant roles in the fight against climate change. Our lands straddle large ecological systems—such as the Sierra Nevada and Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem—in some of the most extreme and sensitive environments in the country. These places provide areas for important scientific studies regarding global warming.

Education is also a crucial role for the NPS. Climate change can be a difficult concept to teach—for example most people do not differentiate between climate and weather. The parks have the advantage of being able to reach large numbers of people—most of whom are not only repeat visitors but also multigenerational ones. They are already seeing the changes in the parks they love; we can help promote stewardship by making the connection between climate change and these impacts.

Our most important role in climate change, however, is providing optimism and hope about the future. So much of the news about climate change is very depressing. The NPS manages an incredible diversity of sites in America, some of them representing our history in times of crisis; these sites offer lessons in the positive change that emerges from challenging events. We should provide centers of hope on the climate change issue as well.

President Obama just signed an executive order that sets sustainability goals for federal agencies with greenhouse gas emission reduction targets. How will the NPS approach these goals?

One of the top priorities on my agenda is that the NPS and its all partners—contractors, concessioners, non-profits—infuse sustainable practices throughout their operations in a comprehensive manner. We need to insist that practices like LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) building, energy efficient lighting, and extensive recycling programs become standard across all parks. We should be setting the example to our visitors with our sustainable practices, which is another educational tool in the climate change forum.

One specific initiative we’ve been exploring is working with the LEED model and developing a similar criteria that incorporates the special circumstances of historic structures. Historic structures hold a large amount of embedded energy—we believe we can both do good in terms of the environment and maintain the historic integrity of some of our buildings.

What are some other priority areas on your agenda as the new director?

I have too many priorities to count, but I have developed four categories of strategic focus to make better sense of the enormous task we have before us: workforce, education, relevancy, and stewardship.

In the workforce area, we’re looking at the bigger picture of the staff in parks and better incorporating the agency with our concessioners and partners. For stewardship, my goal is to be vigilant about standing up for the resource, even if it means making hard decisions. We are strengthening our educational resources and just hired a new position for the agency, an Associate Director for Education. Critical to all of our efforts is making parks more relevant to the American people—we need to reach new audiences and expand our connections to the broader population to ensure the survival of the parks.

How do partners like APPL and its member organizations fit with your goals for the future?

Our agency at times has made it hard to be a partner. That is going to change. We’re all in this together—working for the common goal of protecting our national parks—and as an agency we should be utilizing all of the tremendous resources our partners provide to us.

Doug Smith, Yellowstone Wolf Project Leader, with wolf 472F (photo by NPS Wolf Project)Biologist Douglas Smith has led the

Click here to view a photo slideshow of Yellowstone's wolves.

You’re in the middle of conducting your winter research on the wolves in Yellowstone. What are you finding for 2009 results?

We experienced a population decrease, which is the first time we’ve had two consecutive years of a decline. Since the reintroduction in 1995, the population decreased only four times: in 1999, 2005, 2008, and 2009. This year we counted between 96-98 wolves—the population has not dipped below 100 since 1999. We had to hyphenate the count for the first time because we’ve lost radio tracking with two packs, Delta and Belcher, on the southeast and southwest areas of the park.

Where have the decreases in population taken place?

For research purposes, we’ve started to divide up the wolves into two segments: the northern range and the interior. Our team counted 40 wolves in the northern range as compared to 56 in 2008—this is where we’ve experienced most of our population loss. The interior packs are largely stable—they decreased this year to 56-58 from the mid-60s in 2008. Overall, however, the numbers represent that we’ve lost almost half of our wolves in two years.

What do you think is the reason for the decline?

What is new and significant is that for the first time in our study, we think the decline isn’t associated with disease, but with food stress. During our field time, we found a wolf that had starved to death—this happens pretty rarely. We also observed multiple signs of malnutrition.

We’re not alarmed about the losses or the cause because we’re beginning to think that the wolf population is developing a stable equilibrium with the available food in the park. In 1995 when they were reintroduced, this was the best place in the world to have wolves due to the abundance of food. Using the peak wolf population of 174 in 2003 as a baseline isn’t a good measure because it doesn’t reflect that the wolves probably had an inflated food source. Now we think they are finally coming into balance with the food supply for Yellowstone.

The elk population in Yellowstone has also experienced a decline, which most people attribute to the wolf reintroduction. Is this accurate?

The park has lost half of its elk population—but it’s not all attributable to wolves. What I like to stress is that having fewer elk is not a bad thing. We had one of the densest elk populations in the world. By bringing that population back into the proper balance, we’ve allowed other life forms in the park to flourish.

Should the wolves be protected under the Endangered Species Act?

The wolves have biologically recovered and should be delisted. But they have not politically recovered and people can’t agree on how to manage them. You can’t talk about wolves without talking about anti-wolf sentiment. It appears that when you can hunt wolves, you reduce the level of animosity toward them. In the end wolves are better served from taking them off the endangered species list. It’s a form of conflict management and a benefit to wolf conservation overall.

What pack stood out this year in your research?

Mollie’s pack has become very successful at killing bison—no easy task even for a wolf. 495M, the largest wolf ever recorded in Yellowstone at 143 pounds, leads the pack. Usually the packs will start hunting bison in mid-to-late winter, but Mollie’s started right out of the gate. Mollie’s pack also appears to have bounced back from a mange outbreak—a great new development since most wolves usually don’t recover.

You lost one of your most famous wolves this year—302.

The story of the year was probably 302, the most popular wolf in Yellowstone. The Quadrant pack probably killed him in a territory dispute. We know his story well since we’ve been following him for years. Most wolves live to about 4 ½ to 5 years on average—he was probably nine. We had nicknamed 302 “Mr. Casanova.” Most wolves assume a pretty monogamous breeding position in their pack structure and have no interest in philandering. But 302 had a wandering eye. He would leave his pack during breeding season to court females in other packs. It’s ironic that 302 had a huge following—people loved him—but he was probably the most unethical wolf we had because of his extensive “affairs.”

There have been reports that the wolves are harder to spot in Lamar Valley these days. Is that true?

Lamar provided a hub for the Druids, who are now in bad shape: only two wolves in the pack are without mange, they lost their alpha female, and their alpha male is on the way out. Some good places to see wolves are at the west end of Lamar by Slough Creek or Little America—the Lava pack of three wolves seems to be hanging out there. The Agate pack travels around Specimen Ridge, and the Quadrant pack has been sighted near Swan Lake Flats and in Mammoth Hot Springs. Today you could hear the pack howling right in our offices in Mammoth.                                                       

What will be the focus for the Yellowstone Wolf Project in 2010?

Our research continues to be a source worldwide for the study of predator/prey relationships, and also one of the best resources about a wolf population unexploited by human behavior. Genetics is another key area of focus. We’re doing some groundbreaking work in looking at the genetics of wolf societies and its relationship to their behavior.

What I find so unique and important about the wolf project is its longevity. I recently read that 80% of wildlife research has a duration of three years or less. We’re in our 16th year. We tend to get caught up in the complexities of the web of life, but sometimes the simple things provide so much information. For us, being here in the park and watching the wolves day after day has been invaluable to our work.

For more information on the Yellowstone Wolf Project visit the websites of the National Park Service and Greater Yellowstone Science Learning Center.

The Yellowstone Wolf Project needs your support. Consider making a donation to the Yellowstone Park Foundation today to help fund their important work.

To observe wolves in Yellowstone, take a field class with the non-profit Yellowstone Association or book a wildlife watching vacation package with Yellowstone National Park Lodges.

A bison in Yellowstone's Lamar Valley (photo by Beth Pratt)

This week temperatures soared to above freezing and visitors walked through a fairy-tale terrain in the Upper Geyser Basin. Steam from the thermal features floated through the air, covering the basin in a lazy mist. As Old Faithful erupted into the clear blue sky, its plume gave birth to clouds that hovered over the ground.

Yellowstone in winter is full of wonder. Whether snowshoeing at the Mammoth Terraces, cross-country skiing in the Upper Geyser Basin, or taking a snowcoach tour to the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone, exploring the park in winter is a memorable experience that provides spectacular scenery and excellent wildlife watching.

Yellowstone National Park Lodges offers a variety of packages for winter adventures, such as the Winter Wildlife Expedition, and is currently featuring a $49 per night room special at the Mammoth Hot Springs Hotel. The non-profit Yellowstone Association teaches an array of excellent field seminars and private tours as well, including the upcoming Wolves in the 21st Century and Winter Ecology.

View a slideshow of Yellowstone’s winter wonderland below:

Cutting the dedication ribbon for the new For Future Generations: Yellowstone Gifts (photo by Shad Stites)

The store features an innovative approach to green retail: its sole purpose is to educate and inspire park guests to help protect national parks. Lehnertz commended Xanterra for the depth of the company’s environmental commitment and for helping to support the mission of the National Park Service with the store’s important interpretive displays on climate change.

Xanterra’s Director of Environmental Affairs in Yellowstone, Beth Pratt, spoke about the threats climate change presents to national parks and its wildlife such as the pika and grizzly bears. She also introduced what she believes is the most significant aspect of the store: the new sustainability scorecard Xanterra developed that rates all products offered in the gift shop on social and environmental attributes. “We believe this is the first retail store to extensively utilize a transparent and extensive environmental scorecard.”

The celebration also included a sustainable vendor fair with displays from businesses with products sold in the store and suppliers who assisted with the green remodel of the facility. After a dessert buffet that included locally made chocolate, Larry Schweiger, President and CEO of the National Wildlife Federation, gave a presentation on climate change.

See below for a photo slideshow of the event:

And see below for a video of the dedication event:

Larry Schweiger, NWF President, wildlife watching in Yellowstone (photo by Beth Pratt)

Schweiger outlined the overwhelming evidence that thousands of peer reviewed scientific reports have documented on climate change, and showed startling images from around the world representing the toll global warming has already taken on this planet. He recently attended the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen and urged attendees to put pressure on their elected representatives to pass comprehensive legislation.

Schweiger also related how he spent the morning on a wildlife watching tour in the park despite the negative 38-degree temperature. “I hope for more days like this. Yellowstone needs 40 below days to remain a healthy ecosystem for its inhabitants like the whitebark pine and the grizzly bears.”

At the end of his presentation, Schweiger displayed photographs of his grandchildren and made a heartfelt plea for Americans to assume leadership in the fight against climate change for the sake of future generations. “I don’t know a single parent who wouldn’t do anything in their power for the sake of their children. But yet we are leaving our children a dangerous inheritance with a rapidly changing climate.” In his new book, Last Chance: Preserving Life on Earth, Schweiger echoes this sentiment: “For the sake of all children, please join me in this effort to avoid a climate crisis and keep wildlife thriving.”

Larry Schweiger, President and CEO of the National Wildlife Federation (photo courtesy NWF)

Like most environmental leaders, Schweiger realizes the dire consequences that climate change presents toward life on earth, and he recently attended the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen to urge world governments to act. His new book, Last Chance: Preserving Life on Earth, is an impassioned plea for us to combat climate change before it destroys the precious legacy of life that we leave to our children and grandchildren. All author proceeds from the book are being donated to NWF.

Last Chance outlines the threats that wildlife face from climate change, most alarmingly the statistic that “40 to 70 percent of all species could be extinct within our children’s lifetimes if we don’t take action now.” The book, however, is not just a compilation of scientific figures, although it provides an excellent summary of the projected impacts of climate change. Indeed, Last Chance also serves as a call to action for every citizen of the world.  “Global warming is not only an intellectual matter, but also a deeply moral and spiritual issue that lets no-one off the hook. We must all answer, not just with our best thoughts and words, but with our hearts and actions.”

Mr. Schweiger will be speaking on climate change and signing copies of his new book in Yellowstone National Park on January 7, 2010 at 8:00 pm at the Mammoth Hot Springs Hotel. 

Success at Copenhagen is crucial to the survival of Yellowstone--and all of our national parks. (Photo by Beth Pratt)

Although to most people the bureaucratic meetings in a distant city seem to have little relevance to their own lives, what happens in Copenhagen doesn’t stay in Copenhagen. The inability to come to a consensus on a treaty has dire repercussions for the entire world. And here in the United States, progress—indeed, a solution to the climate crisis—is imperative to the survival of our cherished national parks.

Climate change is already threatening our national parks—some of the best-protected places on the planet. Jon Jarvis, the newly appointed Director of the National Park Service (NPS), deemed climate change “potentially the most far-reaching and consequential challenge to our mission than any previously encountered in the entire history of the NPS.” If we don’t develop a global solution to reduce the ever-increasing production of greenhouse gas emissions, the future of “America’s Best Idea” is at stake.

In Yellowstone National Park, a tiny insect has become a serious threat to the mighty grizzly bear. As a result of warming temperatures at higher elevations, the mountain pine beetle has gained a foothold in whitebark pine forests and is destroying an important part of the bear’s diet. Scientists now predict glaciers will disappear from Glacier National Park by 2030, and Joshua Tree National Park may lose its namesake tree within the next century. Climate change and other environmental ills have pushed a third of amphibians on the verge of extinction, including the mountain yellow-legged frog in Yosemite. And rising temperatures have diminished habitat for the cold-loving pika—a high elevation dweller than can perish from overheating--in Yosemite and other parks.

Recent reports by the Natural Resources Defense Council, Rocky Mountain Climate Organization, and the National Parks and Conservation Association warn of these threats and many others that climate change pose to our national parks.

Copenhagen must be successful at uniting the world to stop global warming. Using the strategies discussed this past week—many of them practical, feasible and workable—week two of the conference must yield comprehensive solutions. If our leaders fail to act, they not only fail the grizzly bears in Yellowstone and the yellow-legged frogs in Yosemite, they also fail to protect our country’s important heritage of national parks, what writer Wallace Stegner called “the best idea we ever had.”

View a photo slideshow of Ten National Parks in Peril.

John Cusack flees the Yellowstone Supervolcano in 2012 (photo Courtesy of Columbia Tristar Marketing Group)

In an instant, the supervolcano will become Yellowstone's most famous--and final--attraction. Its potential to end the world as we know it makes the popular Old Faithful look like a toddler in the geothermal world.

The newly released disaster movie 2012 features John Cusack, Danny Glover, and Woody Harrelson, but the real star of the film is the Yellowstone Supervolcano. As Woody Harrelson declares from his front row seat to the eruption as a gigantic burning rock hurls toward him, "It's beautiful." And truly, the site of the pastoral hills of Yellowstone furiously bubbling like boiling water is fascinating to view on screen. The explosion made myself and fellow moviegoers jump out of our seats from the visual (and the good sound system) of the overwhelming force that obliterated my beloved Yellowstone landscape in seconds. I couldn't totally achieve my suspension of disbelief as I did keep wondering where all of the park's plentiful herds of bison and elk were in the scenery--the film showed only one dead elk and nary a bison.

While much of the plot of 2012 is purely fictional, the Yellowstone supervolcano is not simply a screenwriter's speculation. Much of Yellowstone National Park is located on a caldera that spans approximately 45 miles and is considered one of the world’s most active geologic hot spots. National Geographic recently featured an article on the park's volcanic activity and detailed its turbulent history, which included dozens of volcanic eruptions spanning back 18 million years with three "supervolcanos," one of which left a hole in the ground the size of the state of Rhode Island . “We call this a caldera at unrest,” geophysicist Bob Smith said of Yellowstone in the article.

The supervolcano activity in Yellowstone appears to be on a 700,000 year cycle--give or take 50,000 years. Since the most recent eruption occurred 640,000 years ago, some scientists have speculated the next one is imminent. A recent flurry of earthquake activity in the winter of 2008/2009, which resulted in a swarm of 900 seismic events over a two week period, fueled rumors that the "big one" was approaching.  Yet the exact date is anyone's guess and no scientific evidence points to a 2012 scenario. 

Will the supervolcano erupt on December 21, 2012? Probably not. And even though I don't believe the world will end on that date,  those of us who reside in Yellowstone might have a few anxious moments when the day arrives. At least we can take comfort in knowing that like Woody Harrelson's character in 2012, we'll have front-row seats for the catastrophe and avoid the apocalyptic nuclear winter that will follow. Until then, I'll blissfully ignore that lurking under my home is a force capable of planetary destruction. 

See below for a video that details how the VFX team for 2012 created the Yellowstone supervolcano eruption.