Sunday, February 27, 2022

The coyote and the river otters

Standoff Between Coyote and River Otters on Yellowstone River Ice, Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming

Yellowstone National Park is home to nearly 400 species of animals. If you’re a wildlife photographer, the hope is that you will get to capture species interacting with each other.

A bald eagle swooping down to catch a fish is a somewhat common sight. Spend enough time there and you’re also likely to see a fox leap to pounce on a vole. The big hope, of course, is to see one of the park’s famous wolf packs hunt a bison or an elk, but that activity usually occurs miles out of sight.

On my latest trip to Yellowstone, however, I got to see a wildlife encounter that at first glance seemed downright strange: a standoff between a coyote and river otters. And it took place on ice covering the Yellowstone River.