These wolves came running after an elk calf thinking they had an easy meal. Little did they know, the elk calf had family nearby… who were ready to fight.
Yellowstone National Park is home to a plethora of different types of wildlife. Though that’s great for tourists visiting the park, it’s not exactly great news in Animal Kingdom terms. Where there’s a lot of creatures, there’s a mixture of predators and prey. One predator elk really have to keep an eye out for are wolves.
Wolves will generally do their best to narrow down one elk out of the pack. They usually go for one of the slowest, one that’s injured, or in this case, one that’s the youngest. With animals, as with humans, the younger years consist of a long period of growing up where you have to be guided around and taken care of. You have to spend time learning the ropes, how things work, and what to do and not to do.
It doesn’t take a wildlife expert to tell you that calves are often at the highest risk of death when you break down a herd of elk. Whether it be the cruel winters, the relentless pursuit of predators, or just normal travel, a young elk faces many tests before it makes it to adulthood… if it does at all.
And you might watch this video and ask “Where’s the rest of the elk herd?” That’s a good question, considering elk herds are typically comprised of 200 to 400 members. There’s a chance that this elk family was separated from a bigger group, but regardless, they didn’t exactly have strength numbers.
But what the two elk lacked in herd size, they made up for with heart and pure determination.
The wolf pack chased the small elk through the fields of Yellowstone, seemingly unaware that mom was standing nearby. There was desperation in the gait of the youngling, and for good reason. The wolves were closing in, and its only chance of survival was getting back to its mom.
Once it did get back within the presence of the larger elk, the playing field was immediately leveled. Wolves are great hunters, but elk aren’t too shabby at defense. The pair pulled out all of the intimidating moves on the wolf pack in pursuit, successfully keeping the predators on their heels.
Jenn Dickinson was visiting Yellowstone when all of this played out, and she got her camera out just in time to capture it all on video. I do have to point out that we don’t exactly know how this encounter finished up. One wildlife photographer did jump into the comments to say he spotted the elk family together at a later time in a different place (in other words, they escaped the wolves), and I think that’s the story we’ll go with, eh?
Check out the incredible footage below:
“Absolute HIGHLIGHT of our trip so far. Got to see a pack of wolves hunting elk in Yellowstone.”
