Buffalo Jam

This is another essay from my National Park Series and a photo I took at Yellowstone

They seem out of place in our modern world, a holdover from a time people needed the meat from such large beasts, but there are buffalo everywhere in Yellowstone.

Some are in herds like the one we stopped to see on a quiet early morning, but many are in groups of three or four. Sometimes just one will come moseying down the road or lie like a dark boulder in a field or stand like a sculpture set among a clump of trees.

This ancient mammal was almost killed off by greedy white people who really didn’t know better, or care, but today these animals are safe within the park boundaries. Now they must live as they once did taking their chances against nature and weather and predators and the occasional careless motorist.

We snap photo after photo of these lumps, as dark brown against the yellow grasses as dark chocolate wrapped in a gold tissue, and as usual when there’s an animal visible from the road, a car jam begins to form. At Yellowstone the sight of any animal can cause a jam. Once you’ve been there awhile, you learn to stop whenever you see a car on the side of the road with their occupants staring into the distance.
“I think it’s a bear – see that dark spot moving on the far hill?”
Or
“There’s a buffalo in the trees by the river!”
Or
“A big elk with huge antlers just ran over that hill.”

Because Tom is a landscape photographer and not especially concerned about capturing photos of wildlife, we are often the cause of mini-jams ourselves. People would pull off the road next to our car and look eager until they realize Tom’s camera is pointed at the scenery and there’s not a critter in sight. So, they get back into their cars and drive off, no doubt a bit disappointed.

In the nearby town of Cody we visit galleries where large photographs of Yellowstone’s animals are on display and for sale. We wondered how much time a person would have to spend in Yellowstone to capture just the right shots of these animals.

But we didn’t have to wonder who was doing it. Throughout the park, as we were stopping to look at the sites, a car or pickup truck would pull up and someone, usually a man, would get out holding a camera with a huge, long lens and fire off a few quick shots if an animal was in sight. If there wasn’t one, he wasted no time getting back into his vehicle and racing off to the next location.

It is perhaps a way to make a living, but not in the spirit of the park, which exists to preserve nature and wildlife and shouldn’t be rushed through like another day on the clock.