Wolf Talk

This morning was "Wolf Talk" at the High Desert Museum. Katya wanted to go to this a couple of years ago when they were here, but they were sold out. We were bummed.

But, when Logan and I were at the High Desert a couple of weeks ago they had tickets on sale!

So... this morning Katya and I got up and left Bob with the babies while we headed out. We stopped at Seargent's Cafe and Katya had the best banana pancakes in the world. Outrageous!

Then we got to the museum and hung out until they opened. We grabbed our carpet square and waited impatiently for the wolves to arrive.

This was pretty cool. These people are from Mission: Wolf in Colorado. They talked a lot about wolf behavior and interactions before the wolves even came out for a visit. They encourage visitors out there at their refuge and some day it would be cool for us all to go out there, volunteer our time for a bit and hang around the wolves.

When the wolves came out they were just beautiful. One was a full grey wolf that had imprinted on humans and therefore could not be released to the wild. The other was a wolf-dog that had been found eating out of dumpsters in Salt Lake City. He was such a lover that he tried to sit in everyone's lap to get attention.

I was surprised to learn that although in Yellowstone when a wolf kills a deer, a bear can easily steal their kill. But in the three minutes before the bear shows up to grab the leftovers, a wolf can consume 15 pounds of meat. In three minutes! Evidently, the re-introduction of bears into their ecosystem has helped the endangered grissly. Nature needs it's balance.

Anyway, the whole thing was totally cool. Katya had her entire face licked by the grey wolf and both wolves found great interest in my shoe. I had stepped in some dog doo earlier and thought I had gotten it all off. It was still cool to have them RIGHT there in front of me.

I hope that they come back again. Alexis can go and see them when they are 4 years old. We'll see if she can sit still long enough then.