Survival of the fittest.
Perhaps one of the most beautiful parts about visiting Yellowstone National Park, is that you never know what you may witness.
From the natural beauty to the wildlife, the park is full of sights for visitors to marvel over. And this tourist was able to witness a wild encounter between a group bull elk and a pack of wolves at the park, and documented it all on video for us all to see.
In this video, you can see a group of bull elk huddled closely together and standing in several feet of snow, until they notice a large pack of wolves off in the distance.
Of course, bull elk are prey for wolves, so you can imagine the elk were on high alert.
The video fast forwards to when the wolves approach the elk, completely surrounding them as one of the elk attempts to scare off a few of the wolves.
Once the elk realize the wolves aren’t going anywhere, they take off with the wolves following closely behind.
Luckily, the deep snow slows the wolves down a ton, as they have a hard time maneuvering. Ultimately, the wolves give up, and the elk were able to survive this encounter unscathed.
The caption to the video gives the whole rundown:
“This was an amazing start to a private winter Wildlife Tour on Yellowstone’s Northern Range with a guiding company, Yellowstone Insight. Eleven of the Junction Pack tried to get a meal of elk for breakfast.
But alas, the bull elk persevered as the snow was just too deep for the wolves. It was an amazing bit of Nature and Wildness that unfolded right in front of us. Wolves risk their lives to provide food for their family, with their face!
And this is a typical scenario, where the pack expends a lot of energy, yet turns up empty. Elk 1, Wolves 0. Three out of four chase sequences are unsuccessful for wolves with elk. This chase sequence ended just like that, unsuccessful. The elk made it out of harm’s way on this day.”