A Guide To Yellowstone Guides

To animal tourists, Yellowstone National Park is Mecca, with a Broadway show that also somehow includes the the U.S. Capitol. You have to go once; it's spectacular, important, historical. But most Americans don't ever get to go. If you do go, chances are you can't stay as long as you'd like. So, even though it's a wildlife wonderland, you may want to hire a guide so you don't miss out.

Normally animaltourism.com focuses on seeing animals close to where people live in cities and suburbs. Anybody can tell you there are a lot of bears in Alaska or Wyoming. (And too many guide books give that kind of impractical and expensive advice.) But since my husband and I are planning a trip to Yellowstone, I'm checking out all the options there and assembling a guide to the guides.

These guides are expensive. But these are the people that know Yellowstone wildlife intimately, professionally and may be able to save you from an afternoon hoping for a bear jam. If you're only traveling with a couple people, the science centers seem ideal. The private tours are generally priced for groups of four to six, making them two to three times more expensive for couples.  I'm sure this chart will grow and I'd like to focus on each in depth.

Check out the chart of Yellowstone Guides

Wyoming's Wonderful ASCII Wildlife Maps

Wyoming has done something very cool for wildlife lovers. The Wyoming Game and Fish Department took advantage of their state's rectangular shape and created ASCII wildlife maps for a report, Atlas of Birds, Mammals, Amphibians, and Reptiles in Wyoming.

Wyomingcame up with these elegant and useful maps by dividing the perfectly rectangular state into latilongs--rectangles that cover an area of one degree of latitude by one degree of longitude. Wyoming has exactly 28 latilongs--seven across and four down.

So if you want to find out if badgers live in your area--or if badgers are very prevalent in Wyoming just look at the handy grid for your section. Laramie, you're 27. Casper, 19 is your number. And Yellowstone, you are number 1.

Where to See Wildlife Out West

Odd Stories in Animals This Week

New York City may finally  be safe for parrots. The city council is about to vote on a bill that would protect the colonies of monk parrots.

Texas girl survives rabies without much treatment. She did become "combative" as one of her symptoms, though.

The Fish and Wildlife Service is auctioning off 300,000 items made from wildlife to save on storage costs. Don't expect any rhino heads or elephant feet. They aren't selling anything endangered and the listings so far are pretty tame: Avon watches or Cole Haan "leather driving slippers w/ dog-faces water snake skin trim." This isn't what you fear: it's a kind of snake.

Fruit bats can eat fermented fruit because they're big drunks anyway.

The Sage Grouse might be declared endangered by next Friday. Guess what? The Wyoming Tribune doesn't think they deserve it and thinks the 2005 decision by the Bush administration--though found tainted by politics--was just fine.

This cow in India can milk herself. She doesn't need anyone to pull on her udders, she just whizzes the milk away.