Seven Great Wildlife Experiences

This is the third in my series on “seven things” I have experienced since surviving cancer nearly seven years ago. The previous two were about seven amazing experiences and seven great Team in Training memories.

For as long as I can remember, I have been fascinated with all kinds of animals. When I was very small, about 4, we went to a little zoo in Hershey, PA, and my family went on ahead. I was intrigued by a bobcat and crossed under the fence so I could approach his cage to get a better look. You can picture my mom and dad kind of freaking out when they turned around and saw me walking towards this big cat that was staring balefully at me.

My interest in animals and wildlife has continued all my life. So I decided that one of my great “seven things” posts had to be about wildlife experiences. Like my previous two topics, I had a difficult time picking just seven. Should I include the big male grizzly we saw by the road in Yellowstone? What about the timber rattler I nearly stepped on because I was paying more attention to my brand new GPS than the trail or the big cottonmouth I saw last fall in the marsh? The black bear and two cubs that I hiked within 100 feet of in the Grand Tetons while they gorged themselves with berries? Or the bull elk that I watched polish his antlers for 20 minutes on a small tree? None of these, as memorable as they are, made the cut. In no particular order, my seven most memorable animal experiences since getting lymphoma are:

Swimming with manatees. This was so cool that it is maybe the best of the seven! We went to the Crystal River, Florida area expressly to swim with wild manatees. Being wild, there is no guarantee you will see one, but we got to see about six of them. Swimming right next to a 1,500 – 2,000 totally wild animal in its environment was just incredible. You are not allowed to approach them, but they will swim right up to you to be stroked and scratched. It was amazing interacting with these gentle giants in this way, but sad to see all of the propeller scars.

Seeing an Alaskan brown bear catch a salmon. Everyone but the salmon enjoyed this encounter, in Lake Clark National Park in Alaska. I was up that way in June, 2005 to participate in the Midnight Sun Marathon for TNT, and took an incredible day trip that involved flying above total wilderness to a remote park. There was a small camping lodge there, and they took us to a salmon river, where a young brown bear caught a large salmon. We saw no more of these bears, but saw a black bear and two cubs, a river otter, and about six bald eagles.

Mountain goats in Glacier National Park. Seeing these white goats in the distance on the sides of mountains was thrilling enough, but imagine the thrill of seeing one appear on a little rise while we were hiking , and then walk right past us – 40 feet away? Just around the bend was a mother and kid. Yellowstone bighorn sheep. We stopped at an overlook in Yellowstone with a scenic view of the river. Just before we got back to the car, we noticed a small band of bighorn sheep on top of a steep hill across the road, so we watched them for a while. Eventually the band came down the hill and walked and grazed right by us, some of them walking to within 10 feet. I did not try to approach them, but they are just used to people. This is a closeness to totally wild animals that is so rare to experience. Gray wolf pack. On our last day in Yellowstone, we were driving to the Lamar Valley and lamenting that we had not seen any wolves. Suddenly, we came on a cluster of cars with about a dozen people standing around looking through spotting scopes. We stopped and started chatting with these folks, who had come on a seven member wolf pack. Barely detectable with binoculars, we could see them very well through the 30 power scopes that the people kindly let us use for a few minutes. It was an incredible end to a great three-park trip! (They were way too far way for photos).

Florida panther track. No, I didn’t see a panther, one of the rarest of North American mammals. There are only about 50-75 of these big cats left, as habitat destruction and highways have been lethal to them. But I saw the next best thing – a very clear footprint next to a boardwalk style hiking trail in Everglades National Park. It was like seeing the footprint of a ghost, and it was great to think that this rare creature has been at this very spot just a day or so ago.

For a while, I thought this was the closest I would get to a Florida panther.

Then, we saw this track by a path.

Pronghorn in Yellowstone. I remember writing a paper in 6th grade on pronghorn, the fastest North American mammal, and being an easterner, was fascinated by this animal of the western plains. We saw a few in the National Bison Range in Montana, but that is a huge fenced in rangeland and they were eartagged, and so that was not nearly as exciting as seeing them a week or so later on open range. On the way out of Yellowstone, just a few hours after seeing the wolves, I stopped to get some photos of the Lamar Valley. I walked towards a little rise, planning on catching the view from a little elevation when two beautiful pronghorn appeared on the rise just 30 feet away. They trotted past me as I stood there, gaping in amazement, then took off in a display of their speed, running about a quarter of a mile away where a herd of bison was gathered. I am not sure what my next “seven things” topic will be, but I am leaning towards seven great hikes.