Yellowstone National Park is Wyoming’s top tourist destination, but it’s also a mostly pristine habitat for wild animals. That means visitors will often see nature play out in all its glory and tragedy.
Julie Argyle, the postmaster at Lake Village in the park, witnessed such a scene earlier this month. A majestic bull elk was hopelessly trapped in a muddy pond, slowly dying from exhaustion until Yellowstone rangers decided to end its suffering.
Then days later, several grizzlies battled each other over the carcass until a big bruin used its brute strength to drag the elk out of the mud. Argyle said it was a scene unlike anything she’s ever witnessed in Yellowstone.
“I’ve seen some pretty incredible things in the park, but that's the first time I've ever seen an animal stuck in the mud like that,” she told Cowboy State Daily.
Elk In The Mud
The saga unfolded at a spot Argyle called “No Moose Pond,” in the eastern half of Yellowstone. It’s a spot where she isn’t accustomed to seeing any large animals, and now she knows why.
“It has some water in it, but usually you only see birds there,” she said. “In all my times coming here, I’ve only seen a bear there once. It stood in the grass on the edge of the pond and took a drink when the water was close to the edge.”
Argyle got word that a bull elk was stuck in the pond on the morning of Sept. 8. People driving by that morning alerted her, assuming it must’ve gotten stuck overnight.
Argyle ventured to the pond and saw the elk that was stuck. It was near the grassy edge but trapped in a layer of mud so deep that it was almost completely submerged.
Given that a bull elk can be as tall as 5 feet at the shoulder, it seemed clear that the elk wasn’t going anywhere.
“You could tell that it could still use its front legs a little bit,” she said. “It would lift on its front legs a little bit, but its back end never moved. Every time it used its front legs to try and get out, its back would sink further in.”
The elk stayed stuck all day and overnight. When Argyle returned the next morning, it had barely moved.
“You could tell it had been struggling to get out, but it had moved maybe six inches in all that time,” she said. “Everyone who was there knew that there was no way that animal was going to get out.”
Empathetic Euthanasia
Yellowstone rangers were alerted to the elk in the mud and assessed the situation. After over 24 hours, they made the difficult decision to intervene.
“They humanely put it down,” Argyle said. “They decided to end its suffering.”
Since Yellowstone is a natural setting, the National Park Service typically lets these scenes play out as they naturally would. Otherwise, it could have become a days-long ordeal for the elk before it inevitably died from dehydration or exhaustion.
Argyle advocated for the elk to be killed, as did many others who witnessed its hopeless struggle in the mud. She called it “an empathetic decision.”
“I 100% support their decision and how they treated that situation,” she said. “I don't like to see anything suffer, and most of the time, the (rangers) won't interfere. I think this was one of those unique situations where you know that animal was suffering severely, and it needed to happen.”
The elk was killed sometime on Sept. 9, and its carcass was left in its muddy spot.
Don’t Get Involved
People might be inclined to criticize Argyle and Yellowstone’s rangers for not trying to free the elk, but they knew better than to try. Even if they had wanted to, it would have been extremely dangerous.
“There is no way that elk was going to let anyone walk up to him,” she said. “There were moments when he was thrashing his head around, trying to get out. If someone had tried to go and help that elk, they would have been stabbed by those antlers.”
Human interference does more harm than good. In May 2023, Clifford Walters of Hawaii pulled a bison calf away from the Lamar River after it had gotten separated from its mother.
Walters thought he was saving the calf, but it was euthanized after being abandoned by its herd and becoming a traffic hazard.
It’s also illegal to interfere. Walters was charged and pleaded guilty to one count of intentionally disturbing wildlife as a result of his actions during the incident.
“Someone else may choose to do something like that, but I would never interfere,” Argyle said. “That's not my decision to make.”
Bears’ Bounty
The elk carcass was left undisturbed in the mud for several days. Then, the bears came for the buffet.
Argyle saw several grizzlies attempt to claim the carcass, resulting in dramatic conflict among them. The first grizzly on the scene was “Jam,” a female grizzly also known as “the Ten Mile Sow,” one of the well-known grizzlies in the area, who found the elk on Sept. 13.
“She went in there and played with the antlers at first,” Argyle said.
There’s no concept of “finders, keepers” in the wild. Jam claimed the carcass until she was chased off by “Snow,” another well-known grizzly who happens to be Jam’s sister.
“Snow and Jam have the same mom,” Argyle said. “Snow kicked Jam off and slept there all night. We watched as Jam kept trying to get in, but Snow chased her off.”
Argyle watched Snow attempt to haul the carcass out of the mud, but she didn’t have the strength to do so. Instead, the “Nine Mile Sow” lay next to the carcass to assert her ownership, even if she couldn’t sink her teeth into it.
The next day, a massive male grizzly claimed the carcass, driving Snow and Jam away. Using its brute strength, the bruin grabbed the elk by the backside and hauled it out of the muddy pond.
“He sat there for several days,” Argyle said. “He actually got into a fight with a smaller male who actually managed to get him on his back at least once, but he was eventually chased off.”
To the victor go the spoils. The male grizzly devoured the carcass, enjoying the fruits of its labor in the form of the prime cuts of elk meat. Argyle got a photo of the grizzly, looking thoroughly satisfied with a blood-covered snout and ribs stripped to the bone.
“He was most definitely the King of the Carcass,” she said. “That guy wasn’t letting anyone share and took everything off while he was there.”
Nature, Red In Tooth And Claw
Argyle said watching the bull elk struggle to free itself from the mud was “heart-wrenching,” but recognizes that what unfolded at No Moose Pond was Yellowstone in its purest form. That means witnessing scenes that are difficult to watch.
“Seeing an animal suffer like that, using all of its strength to try to get out and not being able to move, was not easy to watch,” she said. “I’ve been a big wildlife person my whole life, but that wasn’t something I could sit there and watch.”
Argyle has observed and documented many carcasses in Yellowstone, but this incident will stand out for a long time. It showcased the best and worst that the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem has to offer.
“I always say there are no experts, because I think we learn from (the animals) all the time,” she said. “Just when you think you know everything you can about something, you learn something different. It’s incredible.”
Andrew Rossi can be reached at arossi@cowboystatedaily.com.
