Tuesday, September 09, 2008

Man spends day after day viewing, recording wolf movements A grizzly sow battled wolves to protect her cub about a mile from where Rick McIntyre sat upon a black fold-up stool. Just another day at "the office." Two times a day, seven days a week, visitors to Yellowstone National Park can find McIntyre gazing through a 60-power Swarovski spotting scope as he observes wolves and records their movements into a handheld tape recorder. "Part of my job is to count the wolves," he said from his perch upon a hill in the Lamar Valley on Aug. 20. McIntyre, 59, is a half-time employee of the Yellowstone Wolf Project, his wages funded through grants. After transcribing his field notes on observations of the wolves, he gives them to the Wolf Project staff. The other six months of the year he volunteers for the program. The work is close to his home, a cabin in Silver Gate near the park's northeast entrance....

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