We of course were more than happy to oblige this big one as it marched down the road in Denali National Park and Preserve, Alaska.
Nearing the end of our 9 hour day in the park, the caribou we had seen up to that point were not exactly photogenic. They were usually far away or those that were close were pretty scraggly looking as they shed their winter coats. Suddenly this one appeared in the road and it was on a mission coming right at us.
I quickly popped my camera up and shot some pics of it through the windshield of the bus. Given the conditions, the images didn’t come out too bad.
Caribou are also oftentimes called reindeer and inhabit the northern latitudes of North America, Europe, Asia and Greenland. A member of the deer family, one unique thing about them is that both males and females get antlers so you can’t determine their gender from that alone.
Size does differ between them though with bulls averaging between 400 and 600 pounds while females average around half that. Judging by the size, I am guessing this is a bull as it was quite large.