By Jim Stanford on May 19, 2008
(Updated 5/20 with slide show and note about Grizzly No. 399)
Photos © 2008 by Sue Cedarholm. Click to enlarge.
At last, Mother Nature flipped the switch, and Jackson Hole was thrown from winter into the glory of summer.
There was no better display of the exuberance this weekend than the foxes denning in the Karns Meadow along Flat Creek in downtown Jackson.
The mother dug a den about 20 feet from the sidewalk on Snow King Avenue. She has five pups, or kits, who have been entertaining crowds along the busy thoroughfare since at least Thursday morning.
Last night, in the evening light, the foxes put on quite a show. The kits were wrestling, pawing one another, climbing on their mother’s back, bouncing and pouncing around the meadow. When the sun dipped below the Tetons, turning the sky orange, the mother tucked the youngsters back into the den.
On the sidewalk stood a gallery of long lenses and an audience that reflected the cultural melting pot of town: ace wildlife photographers, cyclists, strollers, Latino children shrieking with glee. Everyone had a look of wonder on their faces.
Maybe we ought to rethink plans for development of this public land into a recreational park. Watching the foxes frolic in an island of wetland habitat makes facilities for humans seem less important.
(Click on thumbnails to enlarge, and use arrow keys to navigate slide show.)
All around Jackson Hole, as temperatures soared to near 80 degrees and the rivers and creeks rushed with runoff, came a frenzy of outdoor activity: kayaking the Hoback and Gros Ventre rivers, hiking High School Butte, mountain biking on what few bits of trails are free of snow. The valley is greening by the day, wildflowers are blooming, and you can feel the energy coursing through your veins.
After six months of winter, the sudden burst of summer was nothing short of divine. According to the Mountain Weather forecast, we had better savor it while we can.
Another wildlife note: Grizzly No. 399, the much-observed photographers’ darling, chased away her three 3-year-old cubs on Sunday. She has been hanging out with a new boar and could be preparing to mate again, wildlife watchers report. One of the cubs has been seen wandering in the Willow Flats vicinity.
Posted under Environment, Town Government
Jim,
You write; “The mother dug a den about 20 feet from the sidewalk on Snow King Avenue.”
Your development poke to the park that the Karns family deeded to the Town of Jackson is inappropriate.
Assumptions aside of the damage done to the foxes by the gaggle of photographers assailing their domain, would a pathway along Flat Creek at the Karns Meadow destroy the animal’s habitat? Not if the foxes are doing just fine today living and frolicking a mere 20′ from a busy roadway. Let’s hope that when the youngsters decide to venture across the road, an SUV wielding wildlife conservationist won’t run it over.
Let the nasty comments flow like water. But before you do, please do an educational primer and visit the link I’ve included in this post.
As I stood on the sidewalk, right next to the bike lane I had used to get there, I couldn’t help but wonder why we needed another ribbon of asphalt inside that green space beyond the fence.
Nothing nasty about that.
I’m surprised the town hasn’t put up some sort of caution sign to slow down motorists on Snow King Avenue.
I think you should do an educational primer on your assumed knowledge of SUV drivers. I agree with the author. Why build an addition path when two perfectly adequate ones already exsist? (the sidewalk and the bike lane)