Yellowstone Journals

Yellowstone National Park is among the harshest, most dynamic landscapes on earth. Its summers scorch, its winters are almost unsurvivable, and it is at the mercy of rampant wildfires, explosive geysers, earthquakes, boiling hot springs and rivers powerful enough to cut stone. Only a few creatures can respond to this battery of the elements.

Yellowstone National Park spreads over 3500 square miles, holding within its borders dozen of ecosystems, all delicately interconnected. To the untrained eye, it can look chaotic and competitive, a theatre of territory and conflict. But collaboration is everywhere, you just have to know where to look.

Home to some of the world's most specialized creatures, animals so powerfully equipped with special anatomies, senses, and abilities, that they might as well be superheroes. For each of these animals, one particular gift defines their power and makes their life in Yellowstone successful.

Battles over territory ensue all over Yellowstone, locking males in brutal conflict and extraordinary display as they protect territory, access to females, and the right to breed. It's a brutal reality that sometimes, keeping ecosystems in balance means someone has to lose.

As hard snow yields to spring melt, the park explodes into new life. The same animals we've seen locked in conflict and desperation for survival, are now at their most gentle, as they help their newborn young learn the world. It is Yellowstone's most dynamic season full of sound and colour.

Life and death coexist side by side in Yellowstone, nature taking and giving at every turn. But what can seem like a tragic end to one life, can reveal a new beginning for so many others— if you know how to look. Follow the death of a single young bison as it feeds an entire community of animals, each playing their part.