winter photography in yellowstone - Wolves

While bison display some impressive adaptations for surviving winter, they, along with other ungulates, share one significant disadvantage during the winter, a lack of speed and agility in deep snow. While this may sound more like an inconvenience, it becomes a matter of life and death when your main predator appears to move through the snow as if it wasn’t there. This is the distinct winter advantage of the wolf. Wolves are made for winter. While their prey struggle and sink in the snow, wolves float relatively effortlessly on the surface. Their secret lies in the design of their paws. A wide round shape, and thin webbing between each toe enables each paw to function as a snowshoe. In the search for prey, a pack of wolves, such as Yellowstone's Wapiti pack featured here, may cover 30 snow covered miles in a day. I encountered these wolves recently on one of my photography workshops in Yellowstone. We followed their tracks for miles before catching up to them along them Gibbon River.