Yellowstone: Realm of the Coyote Page #2

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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 pinpoints 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.

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