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Wolves of Yellowstone:
Science, Stewardship, and Civic Engagement

Michelle Hart - Education

May 30, 2006 - Travel Day

Dear Journal,

Today we flew to Bozeman Montana and drove about an hour into Wyoming to Yellowstone National Park. We had started our day early by catching our first flight at 6 in the morning. It was now 7 in the afternoon but Wyoming is two hours behind Eastern Standard Time. We had to meet at the Yellowstone Association building for a debriefing of the class. I had thought the class would be larger then just ten students, but that’s okay more attention for us! We met students who attended universities across the United States. Two students were from Oklahoma, two from Arkansas, two students from Colorado working on their master degrees and our group of four representing Kentucky. It was exciting to meet other people from different states and hearing their reasons for taking the course. By the way, I am majoring in elementary education. I wanted to take this course to be able to explore the west and to use the knowledge taken from this trip to make my teaching more authentic. I didn’t know a whole lot about wolves just what I had seen in movies and the story books like Little Red Riding Hood and Peter and the Wolf. However, all my previous sources really made wolves look ugly. I have always been scared of coyotes and I thought wolves were like them except larger and scarier. The only thing I knew about coyotes was that they were bad and sometimes killed our young calves. During the debriefing Jim, our tour guide/instructor talked about what to expect from the class, the people we were going to hear from and the guidelines for the park. I didn’t know this before I ventured on this trip but there are two wolves in the pack that are leaders and the only ones who are “suppose” to be breeding they are referred to as the Alpha male and Alpha female. During the reintroduction some wolves were collared which means they are wearing a collar which contains and radio like transmission. With the proper equipment Yellowstone personnel can pick up the transponders and locate the wolves quickly. After the two hour briefing we located our hotel, Mammoth Hot Springs and were glad to get some rest before our 5:15 a.m. pickup.

Read about the other students experience on the same day:

Cabrina Hamilton, Biology

Adam Turner, Biology and Political Science

Christopher Whitfield, Political Science and Economics

Read Michelle’s next journal entry