Yellowstone: Realm of the Coyote
It's a world forged by fire and ice...
a wonderland with jagged edges.
Born of a cataclysmic eruption nearly two million years ago
it's been exploding ever since...
...Yellowstone.
This is the first national park
on earth and perhaps still the greatest.
A primeval landscape of water, light - and extraordinary life.
Over the eons,
Yellowstone has become an American Serengeti
home to one of the most diverse
communities of large mammals on the continent...
...home to the great Wyoming herds.
For thousands of years
the call of one great predator has rung out across the wilderness.
The call of the coyote.
It's not the largest or fiercest of Yellowstone's creatures.
But it may well be the most cunning
According to one proverb...
"Next to God, the coyote is the smartest person on earth."
If it seems almost human, that's because like us,
the coyote is both cowardly and brave - a schemer...
...and an opportunist.
Above all, the coyote is a survivor.
It was present at the birth of Yellowstone.
It has outlasted the Ice Age,
the Stone Age, famines, floods; and still, it's going strong.
Nearly 1,000 coyotes live in Yellowstone.
This could be the story of almost any one.
Let's call this one Cain short for the coyote's Latin name,
Canis latrans the "talking dog."
Over the next four seasons, he will face the greatest trials.
This is the story of that year, a year of perils...
...a year of struggle...
a year through the eyes of Yellowstone's coyote.
Wandering across the vast horizon,
coyotes like Cain watch over Yellowstone.
At three years old, Cain weighs 35 pounds
big for most of North America, but average in the park.
Like most coyotes here, Cain is a member of a pack
not a leader, just an underling.
Usually, he hunts on his own.
But every day, he is pulled back to his home, his family
the group that sustains him...
...his pack.
A family of up to a dozen coyotes
rules a territory of a few square miles.
The top dogs - the leaders...
...are a single male...
...and his lifelong mate.
The rest are usually their offspring a mob of siblings.
Packs are an uneasy blend of competition and cooperation,
snarling and snuggling.
But for all the seeming affection,
when it comes to food, there's always tension.
The young are the second-class citizens of coyote society.
They must wait to eat...
...until after their parents have had their fill.
Cain should know he'll also have to wait his turn.
But sometimes the temptation, the hunger is too great.
He needs to eat now.
It won't happen without a fight.
There's no welcome home here.
Bared teeth and arched back show Cain's aggression.
But his tucked tail and other signs tell the true story.
He's scared.
Now he'll have to learn the hard way.
As in most coyote fights, no blood is shed.
But the outcome is very real: Cain will go hungry today.
Despite the conflict, Cain gathers with his pack
his siblings, his rivals.
Life is more secure in a group than alone.
Coyotes have more calls than any other wild mammal of North America.
This group howl means they're allstill buddies.
As coyotes rule the land in Yellowstone,
another animal dominates the water.
It's the one creature that seems to enjoy this brutal season.
And it's having a blast, an Arctic blast.
For the otter, winter is a special playtime.
Any riverbank is an excuse for a slide.
From the hills to the valleys otters create their own highways.
For them, it's always rush hour.
Zipping along at about 15 miles an hour,
it's clear they've raised commuting to a high art.
With their insulating fur,
otters are as cozy beneath the ice as on top of it.
And since open water can always be found, even in winter...
otters don't face starvation like most of Yellowstone's creatures.
Fish are abundant and sluggish from the cold.
But catching the fish is the easy part.
To eat it, the otters have to surface.
And that's exactly where the competition is waiting.
Cain's pack is on patrol.
Coyotes are patient hunters
with a talent for snatching the prey of others.
But the feisty otters are no pushovers.
Coyotes are most successful working as a team.
The pack will stake out several holes.
But otters can usually find an emergency exit.
And when menaced, they can work as a team too.
Ever scheming, Cain sets his sights on a new prize.
But there's no honor among thieves.
Cain's pack runs him down.
The dominant male has claimed the meal as his own.
Once again, Cain is left frustrated.
Life in a pack can sometimes seem unfair.
Winter for coyotes is breeding time.
Junior members of the pack are
supposed to spend this season on the sidelines.
But tentatively, gingerly,
Cain begins to show an interest in the top female.
The male leader won't put up with it.
This is his mate - and his alone.
He lays down the law.
The ruling male has a dilemma.
Should he stay to guard his mate?
Should he head out after food?
Hunger wins out.
Or does it?
He can't make up his mind.
Cain sees an opportunity coming.
The leader has turned up a feast.
But Cain has turned up something equally enticing.
As an underling,
Cain is supposed to help raise the young, not sire them.
Cain has violated the laws of the pack,
and now he's caught in a compromising position.
The leaders head off,
but they're not through with Cain yet.
The pack's sentence, when it comes...
...will be harsh.
The battered Cain will face the worst penalty: Expulsion.
The top male leads the final charge.
Cain's companions have cast him out.
Now exiled and vulnerable,
Cain will be forced to wander the wilderness alone.
For a lone coyote, the odds are never good.
Cain's chances of dying this winter have just tripled.
All of Yellowstone's best turf
has been claimed by one pack or another.
And so the outcast must now prowl the borderlands.
Without a territory, without partners,
finding food will be a greater struggle.
In this winter's bleak landscape...
...even the carcasses are picked to the bone.
Cain will have to take greater risks
to get meals that might have come easily to the pack.
He is forced to go it alone against creatures like the golden eagle.
With a wingspan of nearly seven feet,
the eagle is a formidable opponent.
And it's not frightened of a single coyote like Cain.
Cain's perils are, in fact, just beginning.
Lone coyotes are wanderers
sometimes traveling 20 miles in a single night
and Cain will have to travel far...
...to find food in a land where he's not part of a pack.
His best hope is under the snow.
Rodents like the vole are a coyote specialty.
Enough of these appetizers and Cain will have a full meal.
Not that coyotes are finicky.
They'll eat almost anything from grasshoppers to cows.
It's been said,
"a coyote's favorite food is anything he can chew."
When it comes to hunting voles,
the coyote is a skilled performer.
But another wild dog is a real virtuoso...
...the fox.
With its sharp ear, the fox pinponts its prey.
And when it strikes, it strikes with style.
Foxes fight with style too.
It's a dance of dominance when foxes gather at an elk carcass.
Foxes, unlike coyotes, don't live in packs.
And encounters are usually testy.
In the lower valleys,
Cain is on the lookout for animals in trouble.
Once the buffalo roamed the West in the millions.
Then they were all but eradicated.
In the bison's most desperate hour,
Yellowstone sheltered the only wild herd in the United States.
Winter has always been hard on these great beasts.
But even in the lethal cold,
one thing has always made Yellowstone a haven...
...the geysers
A single geyser like Old Faithful
can erupt with enough energy to melt tons of ice.
Hot springs, mud pots, steam jets, and fumaroles
these are the vents for the earth's great boiling energy.
Yellowstone has more geysers than anywhere else in the world.
In the depth of winter,
when the subzero winds bite,
the bison cluster around these oases of warmth.
Here, grass still grows,
covered only by a thin layer
of snow that the bison can plow with their heads.
But sometimes the snow hides ice kept thin by the hot springs.
Buffalo can weigh up to a ton.
But their legs are narrow and pointy.
On thin ice, that's a treacherous combination.
Every step may be a step toward disaster.
In Yellowstone, the things that give life can also claim it back.
There's nothing the herd can do...
...no lifeline the can throw.
It will take the buffalo nearly four hours to drown.
Death is a long time coming on the high plateau.
Deep into the month of April,
winter lashes the park one last time.
Yellowstone is chilled, frozen under a great white cloud.
Temperatures drop to 40 below.
This is beyond cold.
This is an assault on all things living.
If a coyote knows loneliness,, this must be the loneliest time.
But a new season is on its way.
With every passing day,
huge cracks rend the ice and shatter the crust of winter.
Cain has made it through a trying season.
But now he must do more than simply endure.
He needs a mate, a pack, a territory to call his own.
Sooner or later he must find these, for without them,
his life will be desolate and brief.
With the coming of spring, food is emerging everywhere.
And Cain is on the prowl.
As the snow retreats, carcasses are revealed.
Among them, the bison that drowned in the winter.
Freezing waters have preserved the carcass, and with the thaw,
it's reappeared just in time to catch Cain's eye.
The new season feeds on the remains of the old.
A bear emerges from hibernation.
It's time for breakfast.
Only this fast has been four months long.
And a solo coyote can figure the odds.
The grizzly settles down to enjoy Cain's meal.
As the thaw continues,
white turns to gold, and then to green...
...and the dance of spring goes on.
With great urgent leaps,
the cutthroat trout migrate up the Yellowstone River.
Many will end up as food for predators along the banks.
Like the osprey the magnificent fish hawk.
In a land of hunters,
the osprey is one of the greatest
with feet that grasp like pincers...
the perfect tool for holding on to a slippery fish.
Every morning, the river
brings a new feast to the osprey's door.
And for Cain, for all those that dwell in Yellowstone...
...the first murmur of spring
has now turned into a full-throated roar.
With so much food in abundance, life is flourishing everywhere.
Newborns have also appeared at Cain's old pack.
Two months of gestation have led to this:
Five new members of the pack,
five potential partners, five potential rivals.
All around Cain, families are springing up.
But he has no pack, no mate, no young...
His only companion: A badger.
In fact, the partnership of coyote and badger is legendary.
Native Americans spoke of an ancient bond between the two;
they called them "cousins."
What they are is something like hunting partners.
Cain's keen senses locate the prey.
The badger - a master digger flushes it from the earth.
Above ground, the coyote keeps watch for fleeing prey.
Cain gets the meal this time.
But his deeper hunger endures.
He needs a mate.
At Cain's old pack, the two leaders raise their pups.
But they have help:
Other pack members pitch in
to watch over the pups
to teach them
to protect them from threats...
...like the grizzly.
A half-ton beast with five-inch claws is an unwelcome visitor.
Led by the mother, the pack uproots,
moving the pups to a standby den
they've prepared for just such emergencies.
But nature holds other threats for the coyotes.
Each year the park must face a trial by fire.
The great inferno of 1988 was the most ferocious
to scar the region in two centuries.
But almost every year, lightning sets Yellowstone aflame.
In the aftermath, Cain walks the smoldering earth.
His quest for a mate has led him far.
But he still has many difficult miles to go.
Fire is not only a destructive force.
It also kindles new life.
After a blaze, the grasslands send up new shoots.
As if in response to the killing flames,
everything comes to life again.
Fire brings a second spring...
It is a time of beginning for the pups too.
They have survived the blaze, and are growing rapidly.
Weaned in their second month, they're too big for the den now.
They've moved into a kind of fort tucked away under a tree.
This tug-of-war is just practice.
Today, it's a feather one day soon - it will be a bone.
In the early hours of a new day, a young pup sets out after a vole.
But he can barely handle a bee!
Success.
It's the pup's first catch, a first taste of his new life.
The pups are becoming more assured.
But it's one thing to hunt on your own,
another to work as a team.
And that's what they're setting out to do.
Their target - a badger.
The pups aren't old enough to know they're supposed to be partners.
They've still got a lot to learn.
But the pups seem to feel pretty good about themselves all the same.
Year after year,
the drama of Yellowstone's seasons play out on a grand scale.
For this park spans the decades.
It spans the continental divide.
It spans 2.2 million acres.
Yet for all the enduring panoramic beauty of Yellowstone,
there is another face to this park
rougher, more unformed, almost otherworldly.
Yellowstone has been a national park for well over 100 years.
And yet in a sense...
...it is built anew every day...
...boiling up in great basins of sulfur and mud.
Those that roam Yellowstone day after day
find that each day takes them over slightly different terrain.
Each day, they find the horizon is new again.
After six months alone,
Cain catches sight of a potential mate.
She was cast out from her pack
during the food shortage last winter.
The lone female has been wandering the park like Cain.
The two coyotes offer something precious to each other
a partnership the promise of a family.
Once paired, most coyotes will mate for life.
And this first date has gone very well.
Together they will hunt through the grasslands.
Together they will search for a home.
Finding one won't be easy.
In fact, it will be the challenge of their lives.
All the surrounding territories are held by large packs.
And turf won't be taken without a fight.
In Cain's former pack,
the pups are six months old almost fully grown.
Working with the adults,
they are now a well-coordinated killing team.
And their target is a sickly elk calf.
The mother does her best to defend her young one.
But it's no use.
The coyotes claim their prey.
Long after her battle is lost, the mother continues to fight.
But the coyotes won't be denied their meal.
In the cruel equation of Yellowstone,
the death of the elk calf means life for the young coyotes.
The final days of summer turn cool.
As Cain and his mate wander,
the buffalo go head-to-head
in a violent mating contest the rut.
The males are well-dressed for battle -their heads and shoulders
padded with extra wool to absorb the pounding.
And when it comes, the pounding is ferocious.
For the losers, the cost is sometimes death.
And there is no dignity to death in a land of scavengers.
The colors of fall herald the return of freezing temperatures.
For Cain and his mate, now comes a critical test.
They've hunted side by side, but now they must hunt as a team.
An injured mule deer seems an easy target.
But the coyotes are cautious.
A mule deer's hoof can slash like a knife.
The pair just can't get the job done.
Two coyotes can't surround their prey the way a pack can.
Their failure is a dangerous omen.
For a pair that can't make a kill,
winter will be an ordeal a deadly ordeal.
With the first snows, begin the battles of winter.
The bighorn sheep are fighting for a chance to mate.
Now all of Yellowstone's creatures must once more fend off starvation.
The thermal springs offer respite for some...
...but the season will still take its awful toll.
The odds against Cain and his partner grow with each passing week.
Without a pack, hunting is difficult,
holding a territory even more so.
Without a pack,
they stand less chance of surviving, or of raising young.
Rivers are natural turf boundaries.
And to cross the line into
another pack's domain is to risk confrontation.
But for the hungry pair, now is the time for risk.
They can't resist the lure of a bison carcass.
The resident pack can't afford to
share their food with trespassers.
A clash is coming...
And for Cain, it will have a special significance.
This is his old pack.
These are his kin.
And Cain is still coyote non grata.
Vicious as it is, this battle won't go to the limit.
It will stop when one coyote proves strongest.
And one has.
It's Cain.
This is now his turf.
Defeated, the former leaders wander off into exile.
Old and tired, their prospects are poor.
Cain and his mate claim one of their rewards
the right to eat first.
Confrontation becomes cooperation as Cain's brothers
and sisters accept the takeover.
They all settle in for a banquet.
Cain will in time become a father.
And by helping raise his pups,
his siblings will make sure the family line lives on.
Sibling rivalry turns to revelry of a sort.
And Cain's pack begins life anew.
More adversity will lie ahead this winter - lethal temperatures.
Punishing winds and the never ending struggle for food.
But the coyotes will survive.
They have survived fire and ice,
survived the attacks of man and beast.
This too they will outlast.
There is an Indian tale that states
the coyote will be the last animal on earth.
After the buffalo are gone,
after man has disappeared, all that will be left is darkness.
And in the darkness will echo the call of the coyote.