Yellowstone Photo Essay

Parks Project is dedicated to protecting our parklands, and we find inspiration in the incredible people and places that we have the privilege to support. One of those unique and truly special places is Yellowstone National Park.

In a park that’s larger than Rhode Island and Delaware combined with the largest concentration of mammals in the lower 48 states (67 species), there’s more than enough to talk about.

We’ve had the pleasure of working closely with Yellowstone Forever, the official non profit of Yellowstone National Park, for over 7 years and contributed over $43,000 to date to projects in the park and one of those incredible efforts is the Yellowstone Cougar and Wolf Project.

Our project impact visit kicked off with meeting Dan Stahler, a Wildlife Biologist at Yellowstone National Park; Dan is the lead scientist on the Cougar, Wolf, and Elk projects.

- Sevag Kazanci, co-founder & chief Impact officer Park Project

Talk about an Adventure-mobile! Check out the old Army Barracks in the background; these buildings are still used today as official park staff offices.

Dan’s office is just outside of Mammoth Hot Springs, which was our kick off point. The springs consist of layered sandstone and shale - sedimentary deposits from a shallow inland sea 70-140 million years ago!

Our goal for the day was to visit a Cougar kill site where a Cougar had successfully hunted a Pronghorn Antelope. Through the efforts of radio collaring, the park staff in Yellowstone are able to gather a wealth of vital information on how these animals thrive in this ecosystem, and how to further protect them.

On our way we hit a typical Yellowstone traffic jam… definitely beats the 405 on a friday!

Dan and his team were alerted via GPS collar that a Cougar had hunted and killed in a particular range, so we started off on our hike in that area to see if we could find any remnants.

Not gonna lie, hiking through an area where a top predator in Yellowstone hunts was a slightly uneasy feeling, but it felt a bit better with Dan’s reassurance lol. Here’s a look at some Pronghorn Antelope that were migrating through the area.

Our first sighting of tracks was quite a rush! Seeing Pronghorn fur up close and how researchers like Dan and his team easily find these clues is extraordinary.

After about 20 minutes of searching, Dan was able to locate what was left of the Pronghorn Antelope by a small creek. He mentioned that the Cougar must have stalked its prey near the creek and dragged it to some cover, where it fed with its offspring for a few days—all of this info was gathered via the GPS collars!

Here’s a look at the collars—they have over 2 years of battery life and the capability to unclip and remove the collar via satellite! Dan mentioned they can send a signal at any second and a pin disengages in the collar, which releases the collar from the cougar.

Save the best for last - the majestic Cougar (Puma concolor) - one of the largest cats in North America and top predator native to Greater Yellowstone.