In August, our family was surprised to see a badger run across our backyard.
It did not seem to be in much of a hurry and acted like it owned the place. We were shocked, thinking badgers to be ornery critters
Later I was told seeing a badger was considered good luck and good medicine, which was a relief.
We live on the edge of town and are keenly aware of all the wild critters roaming around Lander Valley. Wyoming is truly where the Wild Things Are – to repeat the name of a popular 2009 movie.
Bears And Wolves?
The Loop Road above Lander is one of the lesser-known and yet most spectacular tourist places in the state.
But in my five decades here, it never seemed possible that the Loop would be a place to encounter both grizzly bears and wolves. But, alas, it is now true.
Four years ago, the Game and Fish Dept. confirmed a photo taken by a bear hunter’s motion-activated remote camera. It shows a five-year old grizzly roaming around a timbered area on Fairfield Hill. This is the hill on the right side of Sinks Canyon seven miles from Lander at the start of the Loop Road.
Farther up from Sinks Canyon (named for the mysterious “sinks” where the Popo Agie River disappears underground and reappears 1/8 mile down the canyon) are the “switchbacks,” a series of back and forth turns up Fossil Mountain. This is the beginning of the Loop Road. The road takes travelers on a 25-mile journey through the Shoshone National Forest emerging at Highway 28 on South Pass.
About that same time in 2021, on the second switchback, local dentist Dr. Eric Sheridan saw two wolves frolicking. This is just one of many recent sightings of wolves in southern Wind River Mountains.
Never in my wildest dreams did I think we could have grizzlies and wolves in our backyard mountains. Heck, my neighbor even swears he found a wolf track in his garden.
Herds Of Elk
Because of the aforementioned sightings of wolves, Lander folks now enjoy watching their own local herd of elk.
Rarely before did you see elk in Lander Valley. You could watch them on the face of the huge Lander Front, the mountains west of town, but you needed binoculars to see them well.
Not anymore.
Almost year-around you can see herds of elk along Sinks Canyon Squaw Creek, Baldwin Creek, and the North Fork of the Popo Agie River.
Now About That Wildlife
But I wanted to write about what a fantastic and unique resource our wild animals are in this state. Let me share a few experiences:
• As a former chairman of the Wyoming Travel Commission, we in the tourism business embraced the Game and Fish campaign called “Wildlife Worth the Watching.”
Our commission always pushed extensive tourist surveying along with our then-director Gene Bryan. We discovered tourists loved coming to Wyoming to see our wildlife almost as much as the big parks, high mountains, and vast deserts.
I once suggested to our tourism marketing folks to use the term “America’s Serengeti” to describe our vast herds of antelope, deer, elk and bison. They never used it, but I sure did to describe our unparalleled wildlife vistas to potential tourists.
What a visitor sees when coming to Wyoming is unique in the lower 48. I have traveled extensively in Colorado, Utah and Montana where you do not see such herds of animals.
• Another unique sight is our herds of wild horses. Although not natural residents, they still offer a breathtaking look at what life is like in the wild.
The Sweetwater County Tourist Board and the Carbon County Visitor Council have done marvelous jobs of promoting tourists seeing the Red Desert herd, as have folks in the Lovell area.
• Now let me tell you about a typical summer Wyoming day I had recently at my home, which is a small acreage on the edge of Lander but WITHIN the city limits.
As I left my house at 7:30 a.m. to meet with my coffee group, known affectionately as the Fox News All-Stars, I watched a doe give birth to a fawn. The little guy wobbled and stumbled but pretty soon was nursing and hoppity-hopped away.
Pretty special, huh?
Later, on my way back to my house on the same lane, a hen pheasant and her brood of tiny chicks held me up, bopping along down the lane in front of me.
Later that morning, I had to stop for a youthful fox that was frolicking around.
For another example, earlier this spring, we had a professional trapper remove two beavers that had mowed down a dozen trees and blocked the creek. They weighed 60 and 40 pounds and were transplanted to the national forest, where there were plenty of other beavers.
We have lived in our present location for 23 years but saw our first bald eagle in May slowly fly over our backyard. We hear this bird is a permanent resident of the Popo Agie River area.
What happens at our place may seem unique but in reality, it happens all across Wyoming. We Wyomingites do live in a wildlife paradise.
So, I guess, in my old age, it might not make sense to complain about the arrival of grizzly bears and wolves. I still am not happy about it but am trying to rationalize that if we like living where the wild things are, and, we do, well . . .
Bill Sniffin can be reached at bill@cowboystatedaily.com
