How Sad

From an article I read today.

The wolf's triumphant return to Yellowstone may be its undoing. The 66 wolves brought to Yellowstone and the Central Idaho wilderness in 1995 and 1996 have grown to about 1,300. At the request of the state legislatures in Wyoming and Idaho — lobbied heavily by organized shooting-sports interests — the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service (USF&WS) is about to remove the Yellowstone-area wolf from the federal Endangered Species list and allow the states to manage them. Known as the 10(j) rule, a special exemption to the Endangered Species Act allows government agencies extra leeway in controlling "experimental populations" like the gray wolf; in short, the government is allowed to kill them. Both Wyoming and Idaho expect USF&WS to lift wolf protection early next year. Then it will be open season for many eager shooters, including Idaho's governor, C.L. "Butch" Otter, who told a rally of petitioning sportsmen in Boise earlier this year, "I'm prepared to bid for that first ticket to shoot a wolf myself." Idaho's official stance is to allow the killing of all wolves over and above the statutory minimum number of breeding pairs: 100 of the approximately 673 wolves in the state.

Read the whole article.

Blog Action Day

A memory to commemorate Blog Action Day. There are things that I remember from my childhood that often make me go "hmmm". For instance, as a child (around 5 years old and painfully shy) I would not hug my grandmother's brother because he could not talk due to a stroke and to this day I regret it. In middle school, my mother arrived home to me crying uncontrollably about a commercial I had just seen. I believe the commercial was for a telephone company but it had a elderly man asking his daughter where his hat was. "Dad its on your head." Looking back, the man had Alzheimer's Disease. The "hmmm" of this story is that my first job out of college and for the next eight years was working with elderly individuals in a adult day care. Many of them attended the center due to strokes and Alzheimer's Disease.

How does this relate to Blog Action Day? Here is my next "hmmm" story. To those of you who know me, know I love whales. I have a tattoo of one. I have gone on whale watching tours. I adopted one. I own Free Willy and the Life magazine about Kiko. I yelled very loudly for my boyfriend to hurry up on the Oregon Coast because I saw one. I admit I cried after watching the orca show at Sea World.
I grew up in Tazewell County, many miles from an ocean much less a whale of any kind. I don't know what triggered my whale obsession. I remember having a book but not what it said. I don't know if Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom had a special but, I remember a time when I was in elementary school where I decided to make flyer's and post them around my neighborhood (a dead end dirt road with thirteen houses on it, two of them being family in addition to my neighbors). My flyer's were to "Save the Whales" with a crude drawing of a sperm whale on it. I am sure I drew the spout also. I wonder what my neighbors thought?! It's amazing that these animals are still such a fascination for me: ask Todd about my excitement in Oregon. They also still need my (our) help. There are nine species of whales on the endangered list. Currently there are 936 endangered animals on just the vertebrae list. It is us who is taking away their habitat, needing makeup from their fat, or polluting the waters that are endangering these animals (and plants). Research how you can help. Look at other blogs that participated in the Blog Action Day. Make a contribution. Any small amount is a step in the right direction.

Tiger Lilly

I went to Todd's page on Phanfare today and this picture came up as a highlighted one. I LOVE IT!!! I like that it isn't the whole flower. I like the color composition. Somehow it just speaks to me. I can't tell you why I like certain pictures/photos but some stop me in my tracks. This one did.

They Wanted My Food

The first day in Yellowstone, we hiked the north rim of the Grand Canyon. In Yellowstone, you can drive, park and walk a short distance to lookouts or platforms to amazing places...such as the Grand Canyon. Or you can find a path and walk several miles, probably alone, and get to these lookouts along with other amazing views. We were going back to our car along this trail when we stepped into a cluster of Clark's Nutcrackers. They were all feeding in the evergreens along the path. They just kept flying from tree to tree and flying right by us. I was eating trail mix at the time. I was worried they were wanting my snack instead of what they were eating in the trees. However, they did not take any thing from my hands. They are pretty birds but sound like blue jays.

Mountain Bluebird

Todd seemed to beat me on this one too. Since we were together on this vacation, we have very similar pictures. Today he also posted a mountain bluebird.

We believe this is a first year male molting. Of course, I may be wrong. It says juveniles have a white eye ring. Adult males are very vibrant.

No Particular Order

You often see herds or harems of elk in Yellowstone. I found myself particularly found of the young one's ears.

We came upon this guy and two females while hiking the Yellowstone River Picnic Trail. He tried to scare us off by making huffing or sneezing noises. Mostly we just waited for them and took pictures while they decided to keep walking. (Todd tells me this is the second fastest land animal.) I didn't try to outrun him anyway.

This is not some lost unicorn species. This is a Pika that unfortunately has a very large tick in the middle of his forehead. I found this one particularly friendly. He kept running up to where we were standing and then back again. Both Todd and I wondered if he wanted us to remove that tick?!

Day Seven-Tammy's Vacation

I am trying to finish my vacation pictures. Todd and I spent day seven in Grand Teton National Park. Another early alarm so that we could get the morning light as it highlighted the peaks. We also did a hike around Jenny Lake, actually only 1/2 of the lake. We caught a ferry back across the lake to the parking lot. Along this hike, we were again hoping to spot some moose and took a small side jaunt from the trail in search. We hiked to Hidden Falls and Inspiration Point was another short hike from the falls. The hike to Inspiration Point was on a very rocky ledge. I was petrified going up and had to run my fingers along the left: touching the mountain to make me feel safer. Todd, who wouldn't walk along the canyon walls in Yellowstone, seemed to jog up this last stretch. I thought that I would need to scoot on my butt as we went back down the mountain. However, walking down was easier. The trail here is actually about five feet wide but it seemed very small to me when we were walking up. We didn't see moose here but this is the day we got close to the moose on the way back into Jackson and my previous post tells you what happened there.

Last day pictures:

Tetons in the morning light

Reflection in Moose Pond

The trail up to Inspiration Point