above: Dall Sheep
At Denali National Park, it’s all about the mountain. But, in the beginning, it was all about the sheep.
above: The “white specks” are Dall Sheep on the mountain.
In 1906, Charles Sheldon, a hunter and conservationist came to the region to hunt Dall Sheep. When he returned a year later, he noticed a decrease in the sheep population. Concerned about the declining numbers, he worked tirelessly to establish the area as a game reserve. His efforts paid off in 1917 when the Mt. McKinley (named after president William McKinley) National Park was established as a wildlife refuge.
right: Golden eagle
The 2 million original acres were increased to 6 million acres in 1980 which made the park bigger than the state of Massachusetts. The name was also changed at that time to the native Athabascan word Denali meaning, “the high one”, as originally suggested by Sheldon.
left: Grizzly bear
right: Another kind of “wildlife”.
The park is home to 37 species of mammals. Seeing wildlife in their native habitat is always exciting for us and we were hoping to see at least some of the larger mammals such as moose, grizzly bears, caribou, Dall sheep and wolves. But, I was curious to see how much wildlife we would be able to see since we had chosen a bus tour instead of hiking into the park. With 6 million acres and one road, what would be the chances of actually viewing the wildlife?
left and below: Moose
Within the first hour of our 11 hour trip, we saw a Grey Wolf. There are only 70 wolves in the whole park so it is rare to see one. After the sighting, I thought, this is going to be a good day.
left: Grey Wolf
We continued to view animals at regular intervals for the rest of the day. The riders on the bus had been instructed by the driver to yell “STOP!” if they saw something. He would then stop and give us time to view and take pictures. But, we had to remain on the bus to take pictures so that we would not disturb the wildlife we had seen. I understood and totally agreed with the philosophy but, my photo finger was a little frustrated with not being able to take good pictures.
above: The little black thing at the far right end of the camouflage is the camera, the rest is the lens. The dinky little black thing in my hand is my camera AND lens.
I had bought a telephoto lens prior to the trip hoping it would help with situations like this but my limited budget did not afford a really good lens with which to take pictures of wildlife. I did however, meet a guy a later that had the mother of all lenses. If I had had one of those and wasn’t on a bus, WOW, could I have some fun! For a mere $10,000, I could take pictures like he does! I have to admit, I did feel a little “lens envy”.
left and below: Caribou
But, we were not disappointed with the animals we saw. By the end of the day, we had seen a sampling of all of the large mammals in the park including the one it all started with, thanks to Charles Sheldon, the Dall Sheep.
above: Genus and species……….. yet to be determined
“What a country chooses to save is what a country chooses to say about itself.” – Mollie Beattie, Director, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service 1993-1996