Big Fat Heads: Angered Squirrels

So, the next of the big national parks was Yellowstone, which was the first US public space to be federally designated as such. It’s a bit of a monster: about 9000km2 (or 40% the size of Wales, using the standardized British media comparative scale).

Despite it’s many millions of annual visitors in “Recreational Vehicles” with greater floorspace than some flats I’ve rented, they attempt to leave the natural environment as unaffected as possible. Which means there are thriving populations of allsorts including bear, wolves and bison.

Bison are empirically the most dangerous animals in the park, as people have a habit of forgetting that they are both wild animals and 2 tonnes of idiotic grumpiness with horns.

They come in large and small varieties

The Americans got excited about spotting these mountain goats, which are somewhat elusive. They are white dots on the horizon before all the zooming, which is why my photos of them look like possible yeti spottings.

Goats: allegedly

The elk hang around the more domestic areas, as the bears and wolves are less likely to frequent there. Which is smart.

“I ain’t goin’ nowhere. Get yo’ own lawn. Sheeeit”

Some of them are very silly, however. This is Derek:

Give him a Wagon Wheel and he calms right down.

Here we found a family of moose, mooses or possibly meece:

“Moooo”. Possibly

And, much to Chan’s delight, we spotted bears on both days we were looking. Five in all but I only managed to pap four of them. I’m not totally sure on morphology but this one is definitely a Black bear (which can be several colours other than black, helpfully):

This zoomed-in dot was a Grizzly, I was reliably informed by a confident American in a baseball cap – so that guy's credentials check out:

Pictured: Definitely not a tree stump

This is a grizzly that we were all a lot closer to. He was worryingly easy to lose in the tall grass:

Sneaky fucker

And this guy, who rather helpfully lured us all out of our vehicles by parading out in a open meadow. You’ve only got to run faster than the next guy.