July 13, 2012

Got to Island Park, Id yesterday – Red Rock RV Park about 20 miles south of West Yellowstone. Our younger daughter, Kim, is here in her trailer with her black Lab, Loki, and her cat, Leo. Loki tried to break down the screen door to get in to see Dusty. We took both dogs to an adjacent field and let them run free. Such happy dogs to be free to run and play together unfettered. Loki is genetically Dusty’s uncle, but is a year younger.

Courtneys and Posiks are here also. This will be a laid back stop and, hopefully, Rob and Kim will get to do some fishing.

Tried to go to a concert last night at Harriman park, but when we got there a notice said it had been moved to Rexburg about 60 miles away. Since it was already the hour the concert was to have begun, we went home.

This morning we went to West Yellowstone to revisit the Grizzly and Wolf Discovery Center. Rob and I had been to it before when the wolf compound was still under construction. There were wolves there then, but we could barely see them. They spent their days lolling in the shade under the trees behind shrubs. The compound is completed now and has two sets of four wolves in different types of environments; one valley and one river. The valley wolves were back behind the trees and bushes, but the river wolves were right out in front. West Yellowstone embraces the bison and has many painted bison spread out around town.

Kim and I went into the center while Rob stayed in the car taking care of come business on his cell phone. There are nine Grizzlies housed here. They are all bears that cannot be released to the wild and they hail from Alaska to Yellowstone. The bears are kept behind closed doors and are released to a yard three times a day. The yard is designed to replicate a typical wild environment complete with waterfall, stream and pond. We watched as one of the keepers hid a mixture of fruits, vegetables and what looked like noodles in various places of the yard, under rocks or logs. Two bears, Kobuk and Nakina, were then released to play in the yard. Kobuk and Nakina are brother and sister that were orphaned as cubs in 1998 when a landowner killed their mother and brother. Each of them made a beeline to a particular clump of logs and chowed down on the food the keeper had hidden. Kobuk then walked into the pond and proceeded to bring a good sized trout up which he promptly consumed. Nakina saw this and decided to try fishing herself, but wasn’t as successful. After they had found all the hidden food they ambled back to the gate area and waited for the gates to their pens to be opened. I think they’ve done this before. After the bears we went over to check out the wolves which had been howling a few minutes before. We also visited a small aviary which has a female bald eagle, a rough legged hawk, a great horned owl, and two golden eagles. All have some sort of permanent damage which prevents them from being released to the wild. Before we left another pair of bears was being released. These two, Sam and Illie, are siblings that wandered into an Alaskan fishing village after their mother disappeared. They are much bigger than Kobuk and Nakina weighing 1000lbs and 750lbs respectively. Kobuk and Nakina weigh 550lbs and 400lbs respectively.