A Yellowstone hiker deployed bear spray twice on Sunday morning after a young collared black wolf kept following him on a trail in Yellowstone National Park, and video of the encounter raced across the internet. Ignazio Zanin, who was on his first full day of a five-day vacation, later said the animal stopped when he turned back, then started following him again.
That video is why people are searching the moment now. It shows a rare close encounter in a place where wildlife sightings draw visitors, and it centers on a tourist who arrived from Texas the night before, bought bear spray at the Bozeman airport, and carried little more than water and an umbrella in his pack. Zanin said he first heard something running at him, turned, and saw the wolf. The animal stopped, then came on behind him as he kept walking.
Zanin said there were other people on the trail, so he moved toward them to stay calm. He also asked whether a wolf that close was normal and was told it was probably his dog. He said the animal was not his dog. It was wild. There were about 20 people in the parking lot overlooking Lamar Valley, and at least three started recording when the wolf appeared. Deric Smith was among them, filming with a cell phone attached to a rented scope on a tripod. He said he wanted to see wolves and bears in Lamar Valley, and by the last morning of his visit he had seen a grizzly and then the wolf.
Smith said he first thought the animal was a dog that had been let loose. He realized it was collared only after watching it closely. From the video, he said, Zanin sprayed the wolf, and the wolf backed off a bit but did not leave. The second burst had no visible effect. Smith said the wolf would not leave him alone, while Zanin said a ranger later used a megaphone to warn everyone and that he heard only the word wolf from a much longer message.
The missing piece is why the wolf kept following after the first spray and showed no reaction to the second. Park staff said the animal was naturally curious, reviewed Smith’s video with Zanin and decided he had acted appropriately. Zanin eventually walked a large loop and returned to the lot, closing a brief but unsettling encounter that ended with no injury, no chase and one question still hanging in the air: what, exactly, made the wolf keep coming back in the first place?
