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Taylor Rabe 🐺🐦‍⬛

@taylorlrabe

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🐺 Wolf technician → Grad student
📍 Yellowstone 📍 Fort Collins
🐘 @conservationnation Education + Engagement Facilitator

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Very few things send grizzly bears running for the hills, but these Junction Butte yearlings gave this one a moment’s pause. A smaller bear, though still formidable against a group of wolves, retreated into the Lamar River to assess his options.

He didn’t take long to do the math. A fresh bison carcass was worth a few nips on the rear end 😳

The bear made his move, crashed the party, and walked away with the kill. This is usually how it goes 😂

Can you recognize any of the Junction Butte wolves from my recent ID tips post?!

#wolves #wolf #yellowstone #yellowstonenationalpark #grizzlybear taken in Yellowstone National Park by @taylorlrabe

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4 months ago

The Wapiti Lake pack - WOOOOOOOOOOOOOWZA

Have you ever heard or seen something so magnificent?!

I watch wolves pretty much every day in Yellowstone. Mainly as a part of my job, but I often find myself observing wolves just for fun. I have spent thousands of hours behind my scope, and I feel like I’ve pretty much seen it all.

Seeing wolves throw their heads back and release the most mesmerizing song is one of the best things about nature.

I’ve traveled all over the world, specifically seeking out different animals, and have had some of the most epic encounters ever - but something about the familiarity of the wolves, sharing both their voices and the landscape with me, just hits different.

I’ll chase this high forever 🤩🐺🫶🏽🙌🏽

#yellowstonewolves #wolvesofyellowstone #wildwolves #howling #wolfpack #yellowstone #yellowstonewolfproject #yellowstonenationalpark #wildyellowstone #wilderness #wolf #wolves #wild #wildlife #wildlifephotography #wildlifephoto #wildandfree #wolfstagram #nature #outdoors #outdoor #howl #wildlifebiology #natgeoyourshot #bbc #work taken in Yellowstone National Park by @taylorlrabe

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a year ago

6 of the Junction Butte puppies were separated from their adult pack members. This happens often, especially when the pups are interested in sticking around an area for a longer period of time. Usually it has to do with something extra smelly, like an old carcass, or maybe something really fun, like a pond full of salamanders. Whatever the cause, when the pups (almost yearlings!!!) are away from their elders, this is when we see them being extra mischievous

This young male from the Junction Butte pack successfully crossed the road in hopes of reuniting with the remainder of his pack, BUT found this really fun, and interesting toy as he made his way through the valley.

This is a closure sign from Yellowstone’s Bear Management team that was set up to warn visitors to stay out of an area due to an active carcass with grizzly bears on it……clearly this pup had better things to do with it 🥹

#wolf #yellowstone #nature #wild #wilderness taken in Yellowstone National Park by @taylorlrabe

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5 months ago

When large carnivores and people share a landscape, how do we help keep both safe?
Repeated exposure to people can sometimes cause wildlife to lose their natural wariness, increasing the risk of conflict, vehicle strikes and, in some cases, lethal management.
One tool wildlife managers use is aversive conditioning, or “hazing”- safe deterrents such as loud noises or non-lethal projectiles designed to discourage habituated behaviors and reinforce healthy boundaries between wildlife and people.
But why do some animals become habituated while others don’t? And how effective is hazing over the long term?
Join us live Thursday, October 1 at 1 PM MDT for a conversation with Taylor L. Rabe @taylorlrabe ,a graduate student at Colorado State University in collaboration with the Yellowstone Wolf Project, as we explore these questions and the research helping inform more proactive approaches to human-wildlife coexistence. Sign up for the webinar at the link in our bio and drop your questions below!

#Wolves #Wolf #Yellowstone #Habituation #WildlifeHazing by @taylorlrabe

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a day ago

Remote camera #WolfWednesday 🐺

Trail cameras are one of the best, non-invasive ways to keep track of wildlife, learning so many things about them along the way!

Yellowstone is so unique - it’s one of the only places in the entire world that you can actually sit and observe wolves in the wild. Most places require the use of trail cameras to get “eyes” on wolves and see them behaving naturally.

The @voyageurswolfproject has mastered the craft of finding the best camera location and learning incredddddible things about the wolves in their ecosystem through trail cameras alone (check them out!)

Fortunately, people like @critter_chaser have watched enough wolves in Yellowstone, to find the perrrrrfect camera location spot to capture videos just like this! (Thanks Jeremy! 🐺)

With hundreds of cameras in Yellowstone’s backcountry, primarily used to capture videos and photos of mountain lions, we are lucky enough to get some epic footage of the wolves utilizing the landscape + patrolling their territories.

We also get lots of other critters roaming the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem - Wolverine, mountain lions, black + grizzly bears, mountain goats, big horn sheep, moose, bobcats, thousands of bison + elk - we’ll occasionally get the smaller critters too, like weasels, pine marten!

Trail cameras are one of the best tools! I encourage you all to play around with them one day to see what you can capture in your neck of the woods 🌲🐺🐻🦬🏔️

Thanks @browningtrailcams for creating the best camera!

#wolves #wolf #yellowstonenationalpark #trailcamera taken in Yellowstone National Park by @taylorlrabe

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5 days ago

Have you ever heard a wolf howl in the wild?! Do you WANT to hear wolves howl in the wild?! It’s one the of most incredible sounds in nature.

Decoding wolf language is some of the hottest science out there right now! 🐺 We’re thrilled to support PhD students Jeremy SunderRaj and Amir Dehbi as they use AI, recording devices, and a whole lot of data to answer big questions about wolf vocalizations in Yellowstone National Park.

Learn anything new from this video? Leave a comment!
Want to learn more? Make sure to check out the Cry Wolf Project website (@thecrywolfproject)

Want to learn more? Check out our f r e e Conservation Nation Academy lesson, Sound Science: Listening to Wolves — and give Jeremy a follow (@critter_chaser ) to stay up to date on all things wolves!

We’re just as excited about our newest f r e e lesson, Sound Science: Listening to Whales. Bioacoustics is uncovering incredible new insights about wildlife around the world, and we can’t wait to explore it with you.

Click the link in our bio to dive in. Educators: both lessons are NGSS-aligned and designed to get students thinking like scientists and connecting classroom learning to real-world science.

Happy watching, and happy #WolfWednesday! 🐺

#wolves #wolf #yellowstone #nature taken in Yellowstone National Park by @taylorlrabe

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12 days ago

#WolfWednesday rolling in hot 🐺

There’s a reason everyone gets excited when a new carcass pops up on the landscape. Whether it’s a kill from wolves, bears, or cougars — or a natural death from disease, old age, or another cause — a fresh carcass brings incredible large carnivore viewing opportunities.

This bison carcass washed up along the banks of the Yellowstone River, and here’s a look at all the different animals that came to feed over the course of five hours. Carcass viewing can be tough to watch at times, but it opens the door to some truly epic wildlife sightings.

Music by @michaelwsyp!! If you’re ever looking for the best person to watch wolves with — who’ll also serenade you roadside while you do it — Michael’s your guy. Find him at @wolftracker 🐺🙌🏾

**** also - check out the new 2025 Yellowstone Wolf, Cougar + Elk Project ANNUAL REPORT **** link in bio!

#wolf #wolves #yellowstone #wild taken in Yellowstone National Park by @taylorlrabe

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19 days ago

I adore this wolf — probably more than most. And I think conversations about wildlife management, including wolf management, are necessary.

I think it sucks that hunters want to kill 1090F simply because she’s loved by people. But I also think a lot of people have a hard time accepting that wolf hunting is legal, which is something that also plays into account. Does that make it right? That’s a separate debate, one that can be applied to many wildlife species— it’s simply how the North American Model of Wildlife Management is set up. In my perfect world, no wildlife would managed, but I understand why it is. I understand this way of life, even if it’s different than my own.

I understand the love and sentiment behind these posts for this wolf and this pack. But let’s give this old girl some credit. There’s a reason she’s Yellowstone’s oldest wolf, and a reason she’s made it to 12.5 years old. She is no stranger to the dangers outside the park. This pack — and this wolf — are some of the most elusive in Yellowstone. I’m hopeful she’ll be just fine.

So for everyone asking my opinion, or how to “lure the wolves back into the park,” or why I haven’t spoken up about 1090F’s fate — this is what I have to say:

I have faith in this old wolf. I hope she goes out on her own terms. If it’s by the hands of people, that’s out of my control.

Education is key, especially with a species this polarizing. I just hope the people trying to shoot her — simply for being a park wolf adored by thousands — take a moment to understand why there’s so much hostility surrounding wolf hunting in the first place when going out of their way to target this wolf, just because.

Fingers crossed she’ll be just fine, though.

Happy to have *civil* discussions about this - your thoughts/opinions/comments. But keep it kind.

#wolf #wolves #hunt #yellowstone #yellowstonenationalpark taken in Yellowstone National Park by @taylorlrabe

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22 days ago

Counting down the days until I’m back in the park, watching the beauty of a Yellowstone winter. There’s nothing more magical than hoar frost on the willows and cottonwoods as you drive in at -20°, low-lying fog rolling through, and chorus howls erupting across the Lamar Valley. Ahhhhhhhh, the mountains are calling.

Winter isn’t just the best time to explore Yellowstone — it’s prime time for epic wildlife encounters: watching wolves hunt, hearing them howl, and experiencing the park in a way most people never get to. No visitors 😌 Let’s go watch some wolves together, people!

#wolves #wolf #yellowtone #bison #yellowstonenationalpark taken in Yellowstone National Park by @taylorlrabe

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a month ago

Happy International Puma Day! 🐾

Today we celebrate one of the most remarkable big cats on the planet: the puma. Few people realize that this single species, Puma concolor, holds the record for the widest distribution of any wild land mammal in the Western Hemisphere. Its range stretches from the Yukon in Canada all the way down to the southern tip of Patagonia — through rainforest, desert, and mountains. No other wild cat, and few mammals of any kind, can claim that kind of ecological range.

Part of what makes the puma so fascinating is its identity crisis — by design, not accident. Depending on where you are in the Americas, you might know this cat as a cougar, mountain lion, catamount, panther, or painter in North America; as león americano (American lion) in parts of Latin America; or by its Quechua-derived name, puma, which has become the most widely used term internationally. One species, dozens of names. A testament to how many cultures across two continents have shared land with this animal for millennia.

If you want to actually see a wild puma — not just know it’s out there — Patagonia, especially around Torres del Paine National Park in Chile, is unmatched. The open region and low scrub that define the landscape mean pumas here are far more visible than their forest-dwelling cousins elsewhere in their range. Guanaco herds, the puma’s primary prey, are abundant and easy to spot, and where there are guanaco, there are pumas hunting them.

Torres del Paine’s puma population has also grown remarkably habituated to the presence of quiet, respectful observers over the past couple of decades, largely thanks to sustained ecotourism and research efforts. It’s now genuinely possible to watch pumas stalk, rest, play, and raise cubs in daylight — encounters that would be virtually unthinkable almost anywhere else on the continent. For wildlife photographers and researchers alike, it’s often described as the best place on Earth for wild puma encounters.

So today, take a moment to appreciate this quiet, adaptable, continent-spanning cat — under whatever name you know it by.

#puma #mountainlion #cougar #patagonia #wildlifeconservation taken in Torres Del Paine, Patagonia by @taylorlrabe

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a month ago

Wolf pup and parent howling. It's the time of year when pups start travelling further away from their den sites. But at four months old they still retain much of their characteristic high-pitched howls. Listen and watch the difference in pitch between this pup and its parent. In musical terms, this pup howled a little more than an octave higher than mom. Not much is known about the time it takes to grow into the howl of an adult. But by this stage of development they are really starting to extend the duration of each howl. And I would wager a bet that they are hearing the low notes of the adult wolves and trying to reach for them themselves.

#bioacoustics #howl by @taylorlrabe

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a month ago

This is exhausting sometimes. Every video seems to bring some negative comments — often, I think, because of a lack of education. People who maybe haven’t had the chance to see a wolf, or watch how they actually behave. Or people who’ve had one hard experience and let it grow into something bigger, then pass that fear along.

I truly welcome disagreement, challenges, and discourse — as long as it’s respectful. I’d love to learn. I value everyone’s experiences, especially the difficult ones people have had with wolves or other large carnivores. Those are real, and they matter to me. But some of these comments go beyond disagreement, into something harsher than I think anyone needs to be.

So here’s my gentle challenge: stay open to information, even when it’s different from what you already believe. If you’re going to share a claim, try to back it up with something factual. And let’s be kind to each other while we do it — willing to learn, not just talk past one another. And that goes both ways. If I get something wrong, I want to know. I’ll own it and do better.

Working with such a controversial, and often politicized, species isn’t always easy. But I think we can all be a little gentler with each other. Let’s try. Be better. Do better.

#wolves #wolf #yellowstone #yellowstonenationalpark #nature taken in Yellowstone National Park by @taylorlrabe

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a month ago