Every trip I’ve been on starts out with that euphoric feeling of unlimited possibilities-limitless things to do and see. Every trip also has a tipping point where that mood changes. For us it might be around 3/4 of the way through when I begin to realize that I’ll have to head home soon. What haven’t I experienced that I would like to? We already saw many animals, but there were ones in the park that eluded us. They’re in the park, we just haven’t crossed paths. So how do we do this? Wolf and bear.
Today is Wednesday, our last full day. Since we couldn’t manage to see bears and wolves in the wild we decided to visit the Grizzly and Wolf Discovery Center right here in West Yellowstone town. They house captured or orphaned animals from the park. The center is big on awareness and teaching people about the relationship between bears, humans, and food and how it has evolved through the years. In a nutshell, once a bear becomes conditioned to the convenience of eating human food, it becomes accustomed to sharing space with humans and might one day become a threat to said humans. That condition isn’t easily reversible and so bears either 1)end up getting put down or 2)placed in rescue centers like this one.
Here we were able to complete our list of animals, albeit not in their natural habitats.
The Grizzly and Wolf Discovery Center, a perfect median.
This is Nakina. Nakina came to live at the GWDC in 1998 from Delta Junction, Alaska. Both of her parents were put down by a chicken farmer, bringing her and her (now passed) brother to the center.
There was an interactive option for the kids where they would set up food for the bears in their enclosure. It cost about 5 bucks extra, and they got a pin with the name and picture of the animal they chose
The kids are setting up food for a group of three bears: Condi, Seeley, and Bo. The idea is for the kids to hide food by burying it under rocks to simulate them foraging in the wild.
* The bears are removed from the enclosure before the kids enter. Basic but key information.
Bo on the right, Condi in the center and Seeley on the left, I think.
Every animal here has a story. Bo was deemed unsafe to be left in the wild because of his eating habits around humans. Similar story with Condi and Seeley, who are sisters. Their mother was put down due to food conditioning. It’s really neat hearing the individual stories of these animals. You can read up on each one here.
Bear testing on different enclosures and containers.
Dang I should have brought my fishing pole! Maybe I’d have chance.
Overall we had a great experience learning here at the center
After the bear and wolf reserve, the kids had huckleberry floats to fuel up before heading back into the park one more time. Pax wanted to see Old Faithful one last time, and Hudson wanted to see Daisy Geyser erupt, which we caught just in time, making that 10 different geysers that we saw erupt during our trip.
For our last meal in West Yellowstone, we decided to eat at the same place we ate on our first night in town, Taqueria Malverde.
One reason we ate here the first night is because it was close by the inn, the second was that there was a line as we drove by at 9:30 p.m. Every time I drove by afterward, I’d look down the alley and there was always a line. Good for you guys!
I kind of wish my carne asada (top left) was cut up. Cutting lean meat with a crappy plastic knife is not cool. The vegetables were interesting. There was a leek like onion and the jalapeno pepper made the top of my head sweat. We also had nachos and miscellaneous tacos but no head meat this time. Yum!
The WOO family page 