Elk | Leslie Patten Books: Wild Places, Sacred Spaces

The First Peoples here

Posted on April 4, 2009 by Leslie

Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem has two premier archaeological sites, both on the eastern side. One is Mummy Cave located between Cody and Yellowstone; the other is Dead Indian Campground, located along Chief Joseph Scenic Highway north of Cody. Mummy Cave is a well-preserved site showing evidence up to 9000 years old. It is well-known and much talked about.

On the other hand, Dead Indian site is difficult to find much information about. The site butts up against the road, near the Dead Indian Campground. It was discovered when someone noticed bones and artifacts slumping into the creek and a dig was lead by George Frison of The University of Wyoming beginning in 1969 and continuing through 1971. According to Frison’s Survival by Hunting, the Dead Indian site is around 4000 years old and probably a large winter campsite.

Another premier site nearby is the Bugas-Holding site. The area is meadow, aspens, and next to the creek. This site also was a large winter campsite where both Bighorn Sheep and Buffalo were taken.

In order to find out more about the Dead Indian site, I went to the Cody library and was lucky enough that they had a copy of the Wyoming Archaeologist from the 70’s when the site was excavated. The local chapter had done the dig with help from Frison. The frayed paperbound copy was the technical report of the findings.

Walking around the site now, my untrained eye would never know there had been a dig. The teepee rings are no longer visible. The only evidence I saw was a single small 1/8″ size obsidian chip. The area though, is a perfect campsite. It has a fairly large and flat meadow right near the creek. It is east enough of the Absarokas that the snow accumulation is less than farther up Dead Indian drainage. It is protected from wind and has areas for lookouts. And it is along a major route through the Park and into the desert below.

In the dig they found antlers of mule deer laid out in ceremonial fashion. A skeleton of a small child was uncovered. Over 500 projectile points and hundreds of stone tools were unearthed. It seems that mostly what these people killed and ate were mule deer and mountain sheep. Even though they lived here during the winter, few elk were uncovered which suggests the populations of large mammals was very different then. George Frison thinks hunting was done singly or in a group, rather than using large scale trapping.

Just around the corner over at Bugas-Holding, mostly Buffalo and sheep were found. The sheep were probably taken in traps right near the site. The site is on private property but a short jaunt over the hills and there are numerous sheep traps, close enough to bring back kill to the campground. An easy walk above the site and you can view the entire valley, east to west; a perfect place for a lookout. Looking up the valley from the site Large obsidian flaking sites are around these hillsides. It seems that this site was later than the Dead Indian and they did use large scale trapping.

George Frison wonders, and so do I, why these peoples would overwinter in and around 7,000′, when they could have easily gone down to the Big Horn Basin at around 5000′ where there is less snow cover. He suggests the abundance of winter hunting. You also have to wonder if the climate was different then as well. The creek in winter As I find out more about what went on in this area east of Yellowstone, I’ll let you know. To imagine this was a major route through the Park, and a large scale occupation area–well, its very quiet here now. Few people live here year round; most choose to live in the lower elevations nearby. People hunt here now, but the people who hunted here in the past also did ceremony to their prey. When I happen to find a small piece of evidence, like a sheep trap or a piece of obsidian, there is a bit of wonder and mystery about it–and sadness. Some principal piece that went on here for thousands of years is gone forever.

Filed under: Native Americans | Tagged: Elk, Native American Culture, Sheepeaters | 2 Comments »

The Elk and the Artemisia

Posted on April 2, 2009 by Leslie

I’ve been watching the elk for weeks around here. Not like the college kids doing the study though. They get up and out the door at dawn (when its frigid outside), locate the collared elks they need to watch that day, set up their tripods and scopes. and observe each elk for 15 minutes. They carry a digital voice recorder and make verbal notes–now they’re eating, now they’re sitting, now they’re chewing, etc. They’ve really gotten to know their elks. They call them by number, tell me if they’re too up country that day to observe, or that some have already gone back towards Yellowstone.

The study, as far as I understand it, is to try and determine what’s causing the low birth rates in the Sunlight elk herd–whether it be dietary, predators, or other factors. The interns in my valley are the ‘back country’ team. They told me they’ve even seen the elk gnawing on antlers and bones.

I have been wondering about their diet for a while. The sagebrush on the flats are browsed to crew-cut height. crew-cut Big Sagebrush

Not browsed Artemisia Apparently Big sagebrush (Artemisia tridentata) is an important food in the winter. The guys think they eat the Sage when the snow cover is high because the Artemisias are taller. As the new grasses emerge, they migrate elevationally, eating the new growth. The sage, though, provides protein that the grasses don’t.

I was curious about the deer and the elk and how much their diets overlap. I see them grazing together a lot. Elk with deer In biology there’s a fancy term called ‘resource partitioning’, which basically means that the deer and elk just couldn’t be competing for the same foods in the same area or there wouldn’t be enough food. Yet I watch the deer nibble the sage and eat new grasses as well. But according to studies, grasses comprise 75% of an elks’ diet, whereas only about 25% of a mule deers. The guys were telling me that the elk get first choice from their observations.

Last year they did an aerial count and came up with around 1400 elk overwintering in the valley. A forest service ranger told me that was carrying capacity.

Almost every hike I take I scare elk out of the trees at some point. The funny thing is that I can be over 500 yards away, and they still scatter. My neighbor says they weren’t always that skittish. He says before the wolves you could approach them fairly closely. The deer here still can be trained to eat out of your hand.

But since I’ve lived here, the elk are sensitive to any slight movements. Last week I saw a herd high up on a rocky slope. They watched me for a brief few moments, decided I was a threat, then took off. Minutes later I came to a prominence that looked out over a treeless meadow. From all sides came elk, over 150. They gathered into a large herd and began moving like a flock of birds, turning and swaying this way and that, splitting up then coming back together. Elk beginning to gather

Deer watch us; Koda watches deer

Filed under: Elk | Tagged: Elk, Sagebrush | 3 Comments »

The bighorn sheep of Little Bald Ridge

Posted on March 14, 2009 by Leslie

The ranch manager told me yesterday that the three wolves who were shot last summer for cattle predation were terribly mangy. Mange is the latest big problem with wolves in the GYC. Mange is a mite that burrows into the skin of an animal, causing it to scratch. It doesn’t kill the wolf, but in a harsh winter they can die with the thin coat. I heard that mange was brought into this country early last century to kill coyotes but I haven’t been able to verify that. One of the interns told me he thought that if a wolf can make it through one winter with the mite, he’ll do o.k. after that. Maybe some kind of resistant or tolerance occurs.

Last summer I did have a fairly close encounter with a wolf. That black wolf was beautiful and fluffy; no mange there. I was walking through a lightly wooded area off-trail when my dog stopped about 8 feet in front of me and stared at something in a shallow gully off to my left. The whole scene took place so fast I barely had time to register what was happening. I looked to my left and saw a smallish black animal, about the size of my dog but fluffier, about 12 feet away. I thought it was a small black bear. By the time I realized it was a wolf (about a millisecond later!), my dog was gone. Usually I carry an electric zapper on my dog for just these occasions, but the zapper was still in California from my move.

I think my incessant screaming, and the fact that that wolf was a lone yearling, scared that wolf so much that she ran off, but not before she had thrown up the contents of her stomach which I found later after my dog returned and I had calmed down. After what seemed like an eternity, Koda came prancing back, with a shit-eating grin on his face. In the span of those few seconds, I had both surrendered to the idea that my dog might never come back, and if he did come back, decided he was going back to the trainer’s for some additional dog-to-dog training.

Wolves kill other canines in their territory. Doesn’t matter if its a coyote, another wolf, or a dog. They don’t eat it, just really tear it to pieces. Being a dog owner in wolf country means you have to be responsible and watchful. The ranch hands at a large ranch across the river told me that the winter is really the time they need to be careful. Although they have wolf activity there year round from the Beartooth Pack, their property is full of elk in the winter and the wolves come down more and the nights are long. Many of the wealthy ranches here have heated kennels for their dogs. She told me a story that last winter the dogs were out of the kennel on a cold winter day. Luckily she was working nearby because she looked over and there was a small pack surrounding their three dogs. She ran over, made a big ruckus, and scared the wolves away.

Another local told me he was hiking with his five year old Black Lab. The Lab ran over and behind a large bush where he was attacked by two wolves. Luckily, the dog lived. But the next year they were hiking off-trail and the lab started whining and came close to this man’s leg. In the woods about 50 feet away, several wolves ran through. Guess that dog learned a lesson.

Yesterday I planned to hike up Little Bald Ridge where there’s always sheep. As I drove down the dirt road, I could see tracks of two large wolves that had run down the road early morning. Climbing up Little Bald Ridge They always like to use the thoroughfare of that spot in the valley to go between two ridges. As I drove bye, I noticed one of the cows just had a new calf.

Bighorn Sheep are always up on that ridge. I tried hiking up there earlier, but the wind and snow got to me. Today was warm and windless though and some of the drifts would have melted. As I hiked up to the buttes, I stopped 2/3 up in a small high meadow that looks out over the entire valley below. No wind, the silence was incredible. A herd of elk came through the trees farther up and stopped to watch me. They’re always skittish. They decided I was something to be afraid of and ran up the mountain and out of sight.

The hike isn’t Annapurna, but its a wind stopper for sure. Its up, up and up and I hoped that when I got to the top the sheep would be in sight. As I rounded the bend, there they were. I kept counting, and then kept counting some more. There were about 2 dozen sheep. Mostly young and ewes, but I saw one nice ram. The ewes kept watch while the ram lazed away–typical! Bighorn are really ‘cute’. Every time I go up there, they’re so curious. Unlike the elk who always just run, the sheep stare and stare the closer you get. If I didn’t have the dog, I suppose I could almost have walked up to them.

Bighorns depend on their elders to find their wintering grounds. This small herd is right near the stone sheeptrap that I wrote about the other day. Of course, to be called Sheepeaters, there had to be so many more sheep around here. My understanding was that this country was thick with sheep, not just 2 dozen. The interesting thing is that if you look around, there are plenty of exactly similar buttes right nearby where those sheep could have been. But every year during the winter, this is the butte they go to. You can count 100% on finding them there. To me, this means they have an ancient honing device in them. They must automatically go to the same forage that their ancestors went to.

I had been wondering for some time what happened to all those sheep. After some research, I found Bighorns had no immunity to the diseases domesticated sheep carry. Domesticated sheep grazing on open pastures and private lands were and still are, wiping out the Bighorn population. And to the Bighorns, domesticated sheep just look like sheep; and being so friendly, Bighorns like to mix it up, unlike wolves.

The Bighorns on Little Bald had several yearlings, but I only saw one baby, at least so far. After a while they got used to me and Koda, and went back to their business of eating. The ram finally got curious enough to stand up for me to view him. The baby ran with his mother. The yearlings stayed in a small group with some ‘nurse ewes’ who watched over them, nuzzling occassionally. I would have stayed for hours and watched them, but it was getting pretty cold and windy up there on the ridge.

Filed under: Bighorn Sheep | Tagged: Bighorn Sheep, Coyotes, Elk, Native American Culture, Sheepeaters, Wolf, Yellowstone National Park | Leave a comment »

My Friend

Posted on March 10, 2009 by Leslie

I have been pondering some seriously deep mysteries; like why the heck I need to spend 1/2 hour getting dressed to go hiking in 7 degree weather, when Koda can just dash outside stark ‘naked’, from 70 degrees inside. Maybe we humans just weren’t made for cold. I’m learning though: about how the cold can freeze up the deep drifts so I can walk on top of them instead of struggling with each sinking footstep; or how the elk and deer make rutted trails making it easy to hike through the woods; or when the deep cold settles on the landscape, an icy silence settles my soul; or if I feel a bit lonely, I can walk outside and see the evidence of the nights activities as footprints in the snow.

Following an elk trail

Its been cold though for a California girl. Yesterday the mercury didn’t get above 10 during the day. In the late afternoon, my 84, going on 85, year old neighbor came to ‘check on me’. He walked in from down the road, told me he had planned to work on his fence that day but the wind was blowing too hard. So instead, he got the hay set out for his horses. He’s pretty hard of hearing, but he likes to talk and his stories are fun, so I just listen mostly. He was born in this valley. His family came here around 1915 to homestead. Considering Wyoming didn’t become a state till 1890, and that the first homesteaders in my valley came about 1903, and that the road from Cody to this area wasn’t paved until 1993, that’s a long time ago.

Last year he said to me “I’ve got an elk tag and I’m going hunting. You wanna come?” I sure did and figured that not only does he know this country like I knew my old neighborhood back in California, but his hunting speed was probably about ‘my speed’.

Going hunting

We saddled up the horses and left about 10:30 am. I always ride his wild horse, Wiley. Wiley is such a great big guy, really sweet and follows you around like a dog. My dog, Koda, and him nuzzle each other. It was October and there’d been a snow a few days before, so we were looking for tracks. We went up to the next valley and up to the ridgeline. All the way J___ was pointing out tracks–of black bears, turkeys, moose. After an hour and a half, we finally got to the ridgeline. “Let’s rest and have lunch.” Yep, my kind of hunting for sure.

We sat for an hour and talked. J___ told me a story about an old timer, who, when J___was six years old, he asked him when he first came to this country. The old- timer replied “When I got here the mountains were flat!” We both cracked up.

After lunch J___found some bull elk tracks. Although all the hunters had gone west along the ridgeline, following the well worn trail, J___ whispered “There’s a little meadow no one knows about on the east beyond those trees. I bet they went there.” The snow was thin, and there was bare ground in most places so it wasn’t easy to track those elk. We slowly made our way through the timber, and sure enough, there were the elk tracks again, heading down a steep wooded ravine. J___ said we could get rimrocked that way.

“If I didn’t have the horses, I’d go down there on foot. But it might be too hard on the horses or get them rimrocked.” I thought of him hiking downhill. Yikes! Glad we had those horses or that old codger might have gone down there. J___ told me his rifle, which to me just looks like a 22, (As you might have guessed, I know nothing about guns) was a WWI rifle for sniper fire. He uses sights only. The thing is heavy. I kept wondering how close he’d have to be to get a good shot.

We circled around for a few hours, on foot and on horse. Finally he said “I want to watch this country for a while.” For a moment I took him to mean “I want to live a bit longer to enjoy this place.” but he meant what he said and we hobbled the horses in an open area and walked back up to a view spot where he could see meadows to the east and west through the timber and just ‘watch this country’. The view was breathtaking, but after a while I laid down and fell asleep, still tired from the night before, dreaming of all sorts of junk in that maddeningly beautiful country. It was like the space of all that openness on top of the world was squeezing all the detritus out of me to allow room inside for its’ space.

"I want to look at this country for a while"

Filed under: New ideas | Tagged: Elk, Tracking | Leave a comment »

Where the Buffalo Once Roamed

Posted on March 2, 2009 by Leslie

I took the research students over to the dead coyote today. The guys have quite a bit of experience, between their schooling, hunting and trapping, I thought they might know what had killed it. They had no qualms about touching it (which I had as I am always wondering about diseases I might catch). Since they touched it, turned it over, felt its coat–I did the same. They also thought it looked really healthy, and said its coat was perfect. The guys discussed the coyotes leg for a while and if that could have been made by a trap. The upper part of the leg was exposed to the bone. After much debate, the guys felt that neither a trap nor a snare could make that wound. It was too high for a trap and too low for a snare.

T___ felt the coyotes’ ribcage and noticed several broken ribs on one side. Since the coyote was lying next to a field where the elk come nightly in large numbers, he guessed the coyote, a male, might have been feeling especially hubristic, trotted through the crowd of elk, and got a good kick where he then bled internally. The gnawing might have come after he was dead.

I took a walk with Koda in the afternoon up on Riddle flat. The elk have been swarming around there–laying everywhere, eating everything. Koda found several stray legs scattered around. The other day on the flat, I bent down and picked up a buffalo horn, a smallish one, probably a calf’s. Buffalo haven’t been in my valley in over 150 years. The horn was so old it looked like layers of bark, peeling, with lichen on it. But it has a point at the end and, being a landscaper, I know wood when I see it, and this ain’t wood! I thought that was just fine; an unexpected and wonderful rare find. That was just 2 days ago.

Yet today I backtracked home across the other end of Riddle flat, bent down again and picked up another Bison horn, much more massive than the other one. J___ was coming over for dinner. His family homesteaded in this valley since 1915. He was born on the mountain, his mother trying to get to Cody and never making it. He’s even shown me the branch of the tree he was born under–he’s got it hanging in his home. (Note: Was I ever jealous of that. I want a tree that I was born under!) I got home just as J___was walking up to my door. “I’ve got something to show you” I have to yell really loud when I speak to J__ because he’s 84 and hard of hearing. I pulled the Bison horn out. “That’s a Buffalo” he confirmed. “I’ve found them all over. They haven’t been here for a really long time. I’ve even found whole skulls. I found one that had a bullet in it and one that was Indian killed.” I asked how he knew the Buffalo skull he’d found had been killed by Indians. “It was hit over the head. They always took the brains out to eat.”

Bison Horns with matchbook for size

Finding that Bison horn, peeling, almost petrified, was like finding a little bit of left over magic–magic that might be called our North American Dreamtime.

Filed under: Bison | Tagged: Buffalo, Coyotes, Dreamtime, Elk | Leave a comment »

Coyotes and Wolves

Posted on March 1, 2009 by Leslie

W___ says we’re having a ‘false spring’. It was in the high 50’s today. “Don’t get too used to it” he told me. For a Mediterranean girl like me, the 50’s are the new 70’s! The solar and dryness made it downright hot. Still, the snow cover makes for great tracking. I’ve been learning about tracking for several years, and even was in a tracking club in California where, of course, they don’t have wolves and bears.

I decided to go hiking up Elk Creek. My neighbor put down a horse last week and right away I saw tracks of two wolves. (Note: Tracks below are wolf and the smaller ones coyote for size. My 85 lb. dog, Koda, would have tracks more in keeping with the coyote! See that photo below) Wolf and coyote tracks I followed them for a while until they went down a steep wooded slope. But later picked them up and, along with coyote tracks, they were headed straight for the dead horse. Seemed like they weren’t too interested in much of the horse though, as just its organs were gone and the rest of the carcass remained intact. Even the birds weren’t on it.

Yesterday I found a dead coyote. It was in an area where lots of elk graze every evening. I couldn’t find any sign of a kill, even though wolves had passed through the area not too long before. Its front leg was exposed down to the bone. I wondered if it had bleed to death from a trap although I couldn’t find any sign of a trap either. I took some photos and plan to show it to the ‘elk boys’, the students who are doing the elk studies out here. They’re very knowledgeable plus they are both hunters and trappers. The other day when I lead them to two elk kills I found near Game and Fish, they were explaining how to age a kill, what to look for to determine what killed the animal, and what animal parts the lab needs for various stats such as age, health, and diet.

Seeing that coyote reminded me of a fellow I ran into last spring at the small campground down the valley. This man had raised a coyote. He knew a fellow that had killed a coyote with pups, so he took one of them.

coyote “They say you can’t raise a coyote, but I did” he told me. “The coyote used to disappear for days or a week at a time. Sometimes other coyotes would come around and howl, trying to entice the baby out to join them, and sometimes she would. But she’d always come back. It was four years before I could pet her. She’d sleep against my leg, but wouldn’t let me touch her. Finally, after four years, she’d let me love her. Smarter than any dog I ever had.”

“I was working with Fish and Game building a road. My boss on the project would come up and we’d talk across in our trucks. I didn’t like this man. He was always down on the work I was doing, which was good work. And the coyote didn’t like him either. We’d be talking and when we’d finish and drive away, you know how you have your arm laying on the window. Well, the coyote would nip at his hand when we’d pass, every time. And she didn’t do that to no one else. So that warden started keeping his arms inside. One day I was working way up on the mountain and here comes the warden. I don’t know how that coyote recognized him, but she did and she started chasing him down the mountain. The warden ran down and into his truck and got away as fast as he could. There was something wrong with that man and the coyote sensed it.”

I went back to look at that coyote again today. Nothing was eating it. I felt bad for it. I’ve seen that coyote many times. I feel like I’ve lost a neighbor.

Filed under: Coyotes, Wolf | Tagged: Coyotes, Elk, Tracking, Wolf | 2 Comments »

The Shepherd

Posted on February 27, 2009 by Leslie

During the elk capture, the ranch hand from the Dude Ranch down the road offered his meadow for us to watch from. He’s a real character with some funny stories. I asked if those were his cattle grazing on forest service land in the summer way down towards the end of the valley. He told me they were.

“The hunters come with their weed-free high quality expensive hay for their horses. They leave it out in the backcountry and our cattle eat it. Then they get angry, so I just give them some of our hay, grown here. Not such good quality you know. Its a good deal for me. Then the Ranger comes and says ‘Hey, is that certified?” And when they say it is, the ranger says ” Where’s your tags?'” I laughed just thinking about that.

My valley runs from the main highway about 35 miles west and butts up against Yellowstone which is just over the Absaroka Mountains. Problem grizzlies get dropped off there in the summer. I’d seen his cattle way far back. I asked if he’d had much cattle predation.

“Don’t have any. Never have lost one cow. The Fish & Game guys always ask ‘What are you doing? How come you have no losses?’ and I tell them “I don’t know why. I don’t do anything. Maybe it’s because the cattle are in the trees back there.”

Last summer several calves were killed on the other ranch towards the head of the Valley. That rancher keeps his cattle mostly enclosed in one area, which is where they were predated on. I suggested maybe it was a lot easier when you knew exactly where the cattle would be every day, like going to the refrigerator.

C___, the ranch hand, has 17 cows about to give birth and has been coming out every 2 hours in the night to keep the wolves away. He’s shepherding them. We asked if we could help birth the calves. He said its easy. He’d call us to help. I hope he does as it sounds fun.

Ranch where cattle were predated upon

Filed under: Wolf | Tagged: Bears, Elk, Wolf, Yellowstone National Park | Leave a comment »

Ancient Wisdom

Posted on February 27, 2009 by Leslie

Winter is the most incredible time here in the valley. There are just a few permanent residents. Most of the human activity involves the students monitoring elk and wolves. Sometimes there are helicopter captures and darting. Yesterday I observed elk being darted for blood samples, fat content, and other indicators. We’re on the ground calling up to the helicopter the elk locations by radio, while there’s a low flying plane above with the GPS coordinates. The helicopter deftly flies in, keeping the elk from running either into the trees or into Wilderness areas. The elk are running like crazy, trying to figure out which way to go. When they go in one direction, the helicopter swoopes over them and they need to turn around. They look like a flock of starlings turning in synchronicity. This kind of work is only done twice a year. Its tremendously expensive and requires a lot of coordination between many agencies. The planes are government. The helicopter is a private company with expert Kiwis, the best in the world.

Elk in my Valley