Bison, Elk and Any Wild Animal is dangerous if Humans get too Close

Travelers who go out west in the fall should be very careful. Elk are in mating season and the bull elk can be dangerous to people who come too close to him.

Years ago we went on vacation in the Canadian Rockies. What a wonderful trip! Barry had his camera ready at all times and captured so many photos of wildlife.

In Jasper BC, elk wondered around on the lawn of the town courthouse and into yards, along the streets and roads. We were warned that it was dangerous to approach an elk at that particular time of the year.

We were told that only a few weeks earlier a tourist and his children were walking about the town when they saw an elk nearby. The father sent his little girl up to the elk to stand beside him while her picture was taken. Suddenly, the bull elk turned on the child and attacked her. She was killed before anyone could help her. That was all it took for us to keep our distance from elk and most of the wild animals we saw.

After a day of sight-seeing and photo-taking, we settled into a cabin we had rented earlier. Once inside, Barry and my brother-in-law grabbed beers and we decided to go outside and sit in the evening cool. But, when the door was opened, we jumped back inside. The bull elk was making himself at home right in front of our door. He grazed a bit and then laid down not five feet from the door to our cabin.

He had us trapped! Several times Stu or Barry opened the door and tried to shoo him away. But he was not going anywhere. He threw his big head up and headed right for our door as if to tell us so.

We didn't know what we were going to do. There was no phone in the cabin and this was before we all carried cell phones. Darkness began to fall. We could see the office lights across the way. How were we going to get anything to eat? We could not get to our car. Frustrated, we knew we just had to wait until the big creature decided to leave. We hoped he would not spend the night in our yard.

We did not know who called and got us help, but from nowhere a truck pulled up and a man in a ranger uniform got out.

"How is this one man going to chase off the bull elk?" I asked. But suddenly I had my answer.

First, the ranger pulled out a hand gun and shot it into the air. The elk was on his feet by now, but not going anywhere. From the back of the pickup truck, the ranger pulled a hockey stick with plastic streamers hanging off it. Lots of streamers in all colors. He held that hockey stick high in front of him and began to walk forward and shake it at the elk.

That did it. You would have thought a monster had appeared. The big bull elk  took off like he was running a race and disappeared into the woods.

We scrambled out of the cabin asking questions of the ranger. "Why did he run from you?" "How did you do that?" "What is that thing?" That was when he explained about the hockey stick and streamers.

"They are afraid of anything taller than they are," he said. "So I hold the hockey stick way up in front of me. He thinks I am bigger than he is, and he takes off."

What a laugh we had, but we were very grateful for the ranger who told us the folks at the office had called him. They saw that we were trapped. Throughout our days in the Canadian Rockies we saw elk everywhere, but we did not get up close and personal with any of them.

Just as the bison in Yellowstone have hurt people recently, any wild animal can hurt you. How many people have been harmed by deer that seem so docile and gentle, or bear that, if left alone, would go on about her business, but if she feels her cubs are in danger she will attack. Don't bother them and usually they won't bother you.

 Humans don't respect animals and their space. When we visited Yellowstone, I fell in love with the bison that seemed to own the roadways. What an interesting creature to watch. But so many tourists want that photo that shows how close they got to the wild beast, like it is a sign of bravery. But it is really a sign of stupidity, I think.

I'll share a poem I wrote about the Bison at Yellowstone.

 

 Autumn at Yellowstone

 

Is it the fire or maybe just September

that paints the park in shades of brown?

A herd of bold, shaggy bison crop

amber prairie grass waving below

gigantic silver Rocky peaks.

Do the small calves by their side face

certain death from winter’s blizzards?

 

I reach from my car window,

touch the sloughing coat of one

historic survivor marching like a tired soldier

down the highway’s center line.

In the distance hobbling on three legs,

no longer able to keep up ―

a potential dinner for wolves.

 

Protecting the Parks and Protecting our Happiness

On this Sunday afternoon here in the Appalachian Mountains of North Carolina it is quiet with sun peeping in and out; just enough to make me think it might stay for a while. The temperature is cool, great for a walk, but I don’t do those much anymore. With back and hip problems, I could be courting pain that lasts for hours.

I watched the Sunday morning TV news shows and I feel I am listening to people who live in a faraway galaxy, not here in my country where the woods are still and silent around my house; where the blue mountains in the distance are home to bears, squirrels, coyotes, and deer, none of whom threaten my way of life. In fact, I am quite sure I will live out my days on this earth just as I am now. I will probably never see a Syrian refugee, a terrorist who comes to blow up our town, an outpouring of angry people marching on the square of Hayesville. I don’t live in fear for myself.

But I am concerned about the future of our world, our country and especially our beautiful national parks and our state parks. The last vestiges of wild and unspoiled land in the United States were set aside by past leaders who recognized the future needs of our people to have a place that was not concrete and asphalt, to have a quiet peaceful place to get away from our hurried and stressful lives.

For many years now, here in North Carolina, I have had the luxury of visiting the Smoky Mountains National Park. Millions of Americans and people from all over the world come to soak up the vastness, the spiritual feeling one absorbs here.

Far too many take our federal lands for granted with no thought of the cost of maintaining these special places. I remember my trip to Yellowstone some years ago. I will never forget the scenes I saw, the hot springs, the bison, the mating elk and the moose. What a vision it was to look out over the wide plains with the amber grasses tall enough to reach the bellies of the buffalo herds that stretched for miles it seemed.

Elk - We saw them everywhere in Yellowstone

Barry and I, while in Las Vegas on business, were able to take an extra week to visit Zion National Park and the Grand Canyon. I wish all the people who spend their lives in dingy little apartments in dirty cities could travel to these glorious sites. When I was there I was so proud I was bustin’ my buttons thinking that these thousands of acres will be protected from the abuse of man and his greed.

Only recently have I worried that our culture might change so much that we forsake these national monuments and development might creep in and soon it will all be gone. I won’t be here to see it, but I have nieces and nephews who have children and they will have families who I hope will visit the parks and find them as fascinating as I do.

We must find a middle ground between those who will destroy our land for money and those who challenge everything for love of nature. We must find a way to make a living without polluting our water, our rivers and our oceans. No matter what you make as a salary, it is not worth spoiling our water resources.

I have lived a few weeks without water in my house. What a horror. I have a well for water for my home and since we drilled a new one, I have to use a filter on the line coming into the house, and also another on the water faucet in my kitchen. Imagine having a situation like Flint Michigan where all water is polluted and dangerous to drink.

When the protections set for our water and environment were put in place by past U.S. Presidents, I was relieved and had hope that we would be safe for the future. Now I am not feeling so safe. When regulations are removed, then our protections are gone.

We are a capitalist country where money has more value than almost anything else. When I was younger, I wanted more money and felt I would be happier if I had a better house, nicer clothes, and could travel. People who make 75,000 dollars a year are just as happy as those who make 300,000 dollars a year according to some studies. Our country is low in the happy countries list.

No matter how rich we become, we need more than money to make us happy. Our “stuff” will eventually be given away or thrown away. What really makes us happy? Freedom from fear, love from our family, and lasting friends who will always be there.

These are the non-material things we need.

To help support Yellowstone National Park, check out this link.

https://www.yellowstone.org/

Old Faithful in a poem for Birthday of our National Parks

This week is the  100th anniversary of our National Parks, wonders of  nature reserved for all people to enjoy. I hope they last forever.

Zion National Park

I have had the good fortune to  visit the Grand Canyon and Zion National Park. I could not get enough of looking at the vast colorful formations of rock not created by man. Barry and I visited these glorious sights in the seventies and eighties, and he made many photographs I still enjoy today. Of course the  Great Smoky Mountains National Park is right  here at my door with the most peaceful and ethereal scenes one could ever wish for.

One vacation, Gay and Stu, my sister and BIL, and Barry and I flew out to Montana and rented an apartment in a  little town near one of the gates to Yellowstone National Park. For a week we visited the park every day and had the best time ever. The bison moving like a wave across the prairie grass will be forever emblazoned into my mind. The  majestic male Elk fighting in the Galatin River, deciding who would be leader of the herd, plays over and  over in my mind. It became a poem, Scene from Yellowstone's Valiant Wild, that has been published a few times. 

We had time to drive through the Great Tetons but wish we had been able to stop and enjoy that beautiful area. It was raining and cold, not a  good day for outside. We did make this photo in front of the lake with snow covered mountains behind us. Looks cold, doesn't it?

Stu is taking this picture of Barry, me and Gay

Today I am posting this poem that was published in Your Daily Poem. It is a bit of humor during this important milestone for our National Parks.

You and Me, Elsie and Old Unfaithful

                     at Yellowstone National Park

Our hands wrapped around hot chocolate cups, 

we shared a muffin  with a resident ground squirrel. 

He ran under tables and chairs in the room where a tree

grew up through the floor as we waited

for the famous geyser to erupt on schedule.

Overcast and cold, the day not meant for

sight-seeing, but we settled in with front row seats

before a giant picture-window. We didn't know the

mature lady with years of laugh lines on her face,

until Elsie took the chair beside us.

For 90 minutes she spilled out her life in cupfuls.

Chicago-born, life-long teacher, retired

to an island in Puget Sound near her only daughter.

I saw this thing this morning and it didn't show me much.

Hope it's better this time. She pulled her sweater close.

What did she expect? Predictable doesn't mean perfect.

I smiled, remembering pictures of the scalding

water shooting skyward, high into blue Montana sky.

Remembering my anticipation of the day when

you and I would be here to see this spectacle in person.

Dusk fell, rain slanted against the pane.

Straining my eyes, I spied the first short bursts

forced from the bowels of the earth. There was

no apex against cerulean sky. The geyser disappeared,

a ghost into the mist, an apparition of my imagination.

The long awaited marvel, like a candle flickered out,

left me empty as the chocolate cups, no sweetness

for the chipmunk, still hunting for some morsel.

Elsie gathered up her coat and hat, ambled off stating

Still doesn't show me much.

                            ---Glenda Council Beall