The peak of wolf population in the US is unknown but the numbers began to freefall around 1870 and the final surviving wolves in Yellowstone were shot in 1926 by park employees due to a policy of large predator eradication.
Some wolves were spotted in the area in the decades that followed but scientist believed they just happened to migrate through the park and didn’t maintain a permanent residence there.
Today, the NPS estimated that 108 wolves roam free in the park’s boundaries, living in approximately 10 total packs.
While wolves’ diet typically consists of elk and deer, they occasionally go after bison and one of the modern day packs was videoed doing just that.
An account named Inspire Wild Media created an incredible video which features a ton of phenomenal shots of this wolf pack scouting out a bison herd, choosing one to pick off, and completing the kill. Honesty, it’s one of the best nature videos I’ve ever seen; I’d even put it in the category of short film.
The poor bison seems to realize he’s done for from the jump, although we have seen videos of them delivering a KO shot by mean of their rear hooves, so the battle was far from over.
The entire 7 minutes of this video are absolutely worth watching and I couldn’t recommend it enough.
Shoutout to Inspire Wild Media, safe to say I’ll be going down a rabbit hole of their content this weekend.