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Montana Grizzly and Wolf Discovery Center
It only took one visit to the Grizzly and Wolf Discovery Center (aka Grizzly Discovery) for it to become one of my Montana favorites. Yeah, pictures are great and all, but as with most everything else, you just have to experience this for yourself! Visitors of any age and in any group size can really enjoy Grizzly Discovery.
It's literally just one block away from the west entrance to the park in West Yellowstone, MT, and a great place to go get a safe, closer look at some amazing Montana wildlife. It's also open 365 days a year, holidays included! And yes, the Grizzlies will be out in the winter, as the bears at Grizzly and Wolf Discovery Center don't hibernate. Very reasonable prices, too! At the time of writing this, admission is $15 for an adult and lower for seniors and children-plus your admission is good for 2 consecutive days!
When I was visiting family in the summer of 2016, we were taking a day trip to/through Yellowstone National Park. I'm always excited to potentially see some Montana wildlife when I visit since I live in the city now, so my sister said we have to stop here first since it is literally one block away from the west entrance to the park. I'm so glad we did! We ended up spending way more time here than we had planned, and everyone was perfectly happy with that. I'm really looking forward to visiting the Grizzly & Wolf Discovery Center again (and again)!
This wildlife attraction isn't really a zoo, even though it has some amazing exhibits, but rather an AZA (Association of Zoos & Aquariums) Not-for-Profit wildlife park and education facility. It houses grizzly bears, wolves, and multiple raptors that have been determined to be unable to survive in the wild.
It's not a huge place, but also not extremely small to the point it gets super-crowded. Even though there's multiple groups of bears and wolves, they're not all out on display all the time, rather rotated out in the exhibits in the groups or packs that get along. It actually makes for an even more fun experience, though, because of their enrichment programs where they introduce different scents or hide foods - but more on that and the animals in the sections below...
Bears at Grizzly Discovery
As expected from the name, of course there are grizzlies at Grizzly Discovery! And these bears don't hibernate during the winter, so you can see this Montana wildlife 365 days a year. There's a fairly large exhibit where they rotate different pairs or larger groups of bears in and out throughout the day. When I was last there my family and I had some pretty good timing where we saw a group when we first walked in, then by the time we had checked out some of the other animals, a new group of bears was out in the exhibit.
When we first went into the "live" section of the Grizzly & Wolf Discovery Center, there was a fairly large group of bears out. They had kind of separated into different groups within the group. One of the bears kept pushing one end of a log down and watching the other end go up on the other end where he (or she) seemed to be messing with the others, either trying to get their attention or bump or trip one of them with the other end of the log. What I really enjoyed watching, though, was when they brought a set of bears going through that day's enrichment program...
Enrichment Program
My family and I had some really good timing, actually. After viewing the wolves and raptors we headed back toward the bear display, where they had just started one of the day's enrichment programs. Grizzly Discovery's enrichment program is designed to keep the animals active and still using some of their instincts. The cool thing about that is you're almost guaranteed to see the animals active during this time. For the bears, food is hidden throughout their habitat before a new group of grizzlies come out. During the summer they have programs where kids can help hide the food with the animal trainers as well.
This particular visit, some peanut butter was hidden up in a couple of trees, which made for some very entertaining Montana wildlife viewing. One bear went straight to the first tree and knew a treat was waiting up high. He tried shaking the tree for quite some time trying to knock the container full of peanut butter out of it. I'm sure purposely, the trainers had it stuck up there really well, though, so the grizzly had to eventually climb up the tree to knock his treat down with his paws. Of course, it was pretty fun to watch all of this!
A second bear head some similar activities, but this one was able to reach the peanut butter on it's hind legs. It took some time to knock the treat down from this tree as well, but it didn't seem to take as much effort as the first bear. Both interactions were definitely fun to watch, and brought the bears to some areas with great, unobstructed views so everyone could get a good look.
As fun as the bears were, they aren't the only stars of the show at Grizzly Discovery. Hmm, I wonder what else could be at the Grizzly and Wolf Discovery Center...
Wolves at the Grizzly and Wolf Discovery Center
There's, of course, more Montana wildlife here than just grizzlies. There are currently two wolf habitats that house six wolves split into three packs or pairs. As with the bears, wolves are rotated in and out as well. In between the two habitats is the Naturalist Cabin, with huge windows that the wolves can come right up to, so you can get a really close view (and some great pictures) of them. Since it's indoors, to, it's a great place to warm up in the winter, or to get out of the sun for a bit in the summer. I wasn't lucky enough for them to be right up at the glass when I visited, but I'll be going back to get some better ones for you! But, I did get a great look when I was in the cabin (they just won't right next to the glass) and especially while I was outside since they had just done one of the enrichment programs.
Wolf Pack Chat & Enrichment
Just like the Grizzlies, the Wolves at the Grizzly & Wolf Discovery Center also have an enrichment program, along with a Wolf Pack Chat with great information being told about the Wolves at the center and Wolf behavior in general. When I was there, they had just put new scents out and hidden some bones in the trees within reach of the wolves.
It was interesting to see some of the behavior of the wolves, as they rolled around in the scents and played just as your favorite puppy at home would. It's hard to tell from the pictures, but that's the odd posture the white wolf is in in the 3rd picture - she's trying to put her scent on the newly introduced scent to "reclaim" that territory.
Overall it was great. You can tell the naturalists love what they're doing and they have a lot of knowledge of not only the wolves in the discovery center and their stories, but of wolves in the wild as well.
But there's still more to the Grizzly and Wolf Discovery Center
Raptor Exhibits
And finally we get to the Raptor Exhibit at Grizzly Discovery. The Birds of Prey raptor exhibit is the only seasonal part of the Grizzly and Wolf Discovery Center, being open from May through November. Don't worry, though, the Grizzlies and Wolves are still there 365 days a year, and as previously noted, these bears don't hibernate.
But, back to the raptors. All of the raptors permitted to stay at the Grizzly Discovery are there because it was determined that they were unfit to be released back into the wild as they would unlikely survive (they may not be able to fly, or see very well for example). This allows us to get a closer look and learn a little bit more about these beautiful large birds.
The center has quite a few bald eagles (one of my favorite raptors), a golden eagle, a few different kinds of hawks and falcons, some great horned owls (and a cute little saw-whet owl) and quite a bit more.
Birds of Prey Presentation
Unlike the wolves and grizzlies, the raptors get to come out and play during the Birds of Prey Presentation, when handlers will bring out some of the beautiful birds for a closer look and to talk more about the resident raptors' stories. I wasn't able to participate in one of these when I visited, but if they are anything like the other talks, I'm confident they're well worth the time. Next time I go back (or my family does), I'll make sure to check it out, but maybe you can beat me to it!
Additional Programs at the Grizzly & Wolf Discovery Center
The programs we've talked about so far were more related to observing the animals in their exhibits, but there are additional programs at Grizzly Discovery where you can actually participate. Of course, it wouldn't be safe to get in an exhibit with these animals, but you may be able to go into an exhibit while they are not in there...
Keeper Kids get to participate in hiding food in the bears' habitat and then see them seek it out later. This is for kids 5-12 and is first-come, first-serve activity during the summer (twice daily).
Keeper Crew is for those aged 13-17 and help the keepers prepare the bears' enrichment for the Keeper Kids program.
The last activity of the day is the Raptor Rap, similar to the enrichment programs it isn't a hand's on participation, but provides additional facts about the resident birds of the center.
Finally, there are occasionally Yellowstone Park Ranger presentations. They aren't offered daily like everything else, but the rangers will discuss numerous topics of Yellowstone, including some of the other wildlife like bison and wolverines, along with features like geysers and other formations of the park.
You can view the weekly schedule of programs and programs times here.
Again, I highly recommend checking out the Grizzly and Wolf Discovery Center if you're going to be anywhere near it (especially for a Yellowstone trip). I could have gone on and on, but just like Montana, words and even pictures don't do it justice, you have to experience it for yourself!
Still not convinced? Find out more at the official Grizzly Discovery website: www.grizzlydiscoveryctr.org/