The world’s oldest national park is a total environment of plants and animals living together in a 2.2-million-acre biotic community, in which each form of life plays a role in the existence of the other.
Yellowstone is virtually the perfect habitat for a large variety of vertebrates, mammals, birds, fish and a few reptiles and amphibians. The area remains largely in the same natural state it was in more than 130 years ago, when it was designated the world’s first national park on March 1, 1872. Yellowstone is home to more than 60 species of mammals, more than 200 species of birds and a half-dozen game fish.
The larger mammals of Yellowstone include its famous bears – both black and grizzly – elk (wapiti), bison (buffalo), moose, mule deer, pronghorn antelope, bighorn sheep, coyotes and lynx. On rare occasions, mountain lions and wolves can be seen. The birdlife includes the rare trumpeter swan, bald eagle, osprey, Canada geese, California and ringbill gulls, a variety of ducks, the white pelican and a host of other species. The cutthroat trout, grayling and mountain whitefish are the only game fish native to Yellowstone, but rainbow, German brown, brook and lake trout (Mackinaw) have been introduced and thrive in various areas.
Yellowstone also provides a home for a large variety of small mammals. The park’s rodent population includes two species of ground squirrels, three different chipmunks, the marmot, the red squirrel, the northern flying squirrel, the beaver, the porcupine, the northern pocket gopher, muskrat, mice (three species) and voles (a half-dozen species). Rodents are an extremely important link in the Yellowstone food chain. Without them, many larger forms of wildlife could not exist.
Along with Old Faithful and the Lower Falls of the Yellowstone River, the black bear epitomizes Yellowstone National Park more than anything else. The black bear (which may be black, brown or cinnamon in color) used to roam the entire area and adjacent forests and could be seen along most of the park’s roads. Visitors don’t see many bears nowadays because they are out of sight feeding on natural foods. Remember, it is against park regulations to feed the bears.
Weighing in at 300 to 400 pounds and standing up to three feet tall at the shoulders, the black bear often gives the appearance of being a fat clown. But he is a “clown” with sharp teeth and claws and he is a wild animal, first and foremost. Remember – you are a visitor in the bear’s backyard.
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