Onlooker captures unbelievable encounter between hikers and wolf pack: 'They have no clue'

A pair of Yellowstone tourists averted potential disaster after obliviously hiking within mere yards of multiple wild wolves. 

"They really don't see that?" an offscreen voice asked incredulously in a video posted to Facebook showing the two hikers walking past the wolves. 

What happens when two hikers unknowingly walk into an area where a pack of wolves is sleeping??? Absolutely nothing....

Posted by Wild Love Images - Julie Argyle Wildlife Photography #shootwithacamera on Saturday, October 23, 2021

"They have no clue," a second offscreen voice responded. 

Wildlife photographer Julie Argyle posted the video to her Facebook page. Rather than take the opportunity to bash the tourists for their obliviousness, she used it to correct a popular misconception about wolves. 

"What happens when two hikers unknowingly walk into an area where a pack of wolves is sleeping?" Argyle posted alongside the video. "Absolutely nothing. Contrary to what some people want you to believe, wolves aren't normally going to attack you." 

Commenters agreed. 

"In North America, there are practically no instances of wolves killing humans in the last 120 years," wrote Facebook user Richard Anderson. 

"The ranching industry would have us believe otherwise," chimed in Adam Walker. "Wolves are so misunderstood." 

This is not to say that humans should feel free to come as close to wildlife as they want to, though, as such behavior puts both people and wildlife at risk. 

Wolf packs roamed freely in the area now known as Yellowstone National Park as recently as the late 1800s, but by the 1920s, having been "pursued with more determination than any other animal in the United States' history," they had been completely eradicated, according to Outside.

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The absence of wolves threw the area's ecosystem out of balance for nearly a century with disastrous unforeseen consequences, largely due to the elk population.

Surprisingly, it was not wolves' ability to keep elk numbers in check that made the difference. Rather, it was wolves' proclivity for keeping elk on the move.

Without wolves to scare elk into moving along regularly, the grazers were free to devour vegetation along riverbanks until the areas were essentially barren, a park expert told Outside. 

The elk devoured young willow, aspen, and cottonwood plants. This decimated the local beaver population, as beavers rely on willows to survive the winter, per Outside. 

The lack of mature vegetation and constant presence of grazing elk also harmed the riverbanks themselves, causing erosion that muddied waters, creating hazardous conditions for fish and other waterlife, according to National Geographic. 

Despite this tragic history, the reintroduction of wolves into Yellowstone in 1995 has been one of the great success stories of species and ecosystem revitalization.

The reintroduction of wolves changed elk behavior to the point that, although the elk population now is triple that of several decades ago, mature vegetation has returned to the riverbanks and beaver populations have rebounded, per Outside.

The saga of wolves in Yellowstone serves as an important reminder of the delicate interconnectedness of our natural ecosystems and also of their amazing resiliency. 

Of course, the pair of hikers who unwittingly strode past the Yellowstone wolves likely were blissfully unaware of all of this. 

"I think the best part of this entire encounter was when the hikers walked back around the trail and I asked them if they had seen any animals and they both said no they hadn't seen anything," Argyle wrote in her Facebook post. 

"I showed them the video and they could not believe what was right there in front of them."

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