Watch: Oblivious hikers startle Yellowstone wolf pack
A photographer has captured footage showing two Yellowstone National Park hikers startling a wolf pack at close quarters and continuing as though nothing had happened.
That’s because the off-trail hikers were not paying attention and did not know that wolves had been napping and were suddenly watching them from only 20 yards away.
“They have no clue,” Julie Argyle says in the video, as she and her group watch from 600 yards. “Isn’t that funny, those people have no clue.” (Video is posted below.)
Argyle was shooting through a spotting scope; hence, the grainy footage. It shows the hikers – one of them fidgeting with his backpack – walking with their heads down as the closest wolf eyes them from a hill to their right.
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Stirring in the shadows are at least three other wolves, all from the Wapiti Lake Pack.
“The wolf at the beginning of the video was actually laying down halfway down the hill when the hikers were walking up,” Argyle told FTW Outdoors. “I hadn’t started my video at that time. It realized they were coming toward it and it jumped up and hid behind the tree.”
Wolf from Yellowstone’s Wapiti Lake Pack. Photo: Julie Argyle
Yellowstone guidelines stipulate that tourists must stay at least 100 yards from bears and wolves. But it does not appear as though the hikers had been in danger.
In fact, in sharing the footage – the encounter occurred Sept. 25 – Argyle hoped to drive home the point that wolves are not the savage creatures many believe them to be.
Wolf from the Wapiti Lake Pack. Photo: Julie Argyle
Her Facebook introduction reads: “What happens when two hikers unknowingly walk into an area where a pack of wolves is sleeping? Absolutely nothing.
“Contrary to what some people want you to believe, wolves are not going to attack you. In most cases they will run away from you if you encounter them in the back country.”
When it was suggested that the hikers were fortunate that a momma grizzly bear wasn’t sleeping on that hill with her cubs, Argyle responded, “They sure were. That would have been an entirely different story.”
