Touring - Need Nature\Wild-life tour routes

I'm looking into veterinary school in the future and would love to find a route that puts me in contact with wild life. Preferrably of a non-confrontational or threatening, conservative, and habitat friendly manner. I live in Seattle and have considered a variation of the spring caribou migration path as well as a number of wolf habitats. I would definetly research the best way to transverse these in the above mentioned mannors, but do any of you have any suggestion of past routes you've done or routes you heard of other people doing. Anything would be great.

Yellowstone used to have a group of researchers who monitor the wolf packs there. I don't know if they are still there. I was there in the winter about 2 years ago, and because the access (roads) are also open to the public, they couldn't turn us away. So, if you are at a stop where they are stopped, they give very quiet (whispers) "mini-lectures" about what is going on..which pack is which, who's the alpha, etc. I got to see some wolves through a binoculars (only, not visible by eye); two packs, what the researchers interpreted as setting boundries. Both packs were "lounging" in the sun, near the shared edge of their respective territories.

However, given the recent movement by Wyoming and Idaho to open hunting to include wolves, you might want to go sooner rather than later............................


(I don't remember if Montana is pushing wolf hunting as well, but, since most of Yellowstone is in Wyoming and the western border is very close to Idaho, you've got more or less 99% of Yellowstone with potential wolf hunting.)

Mostly I've see wildlife at or before dawn when riding to work on routes that pass near or through parkland. If you have a summer to kill consider the mountain bike route that followes the Continental Divide from Canada to Mexico. Sad is it is, consider asking local police departments where they have the most deer/car accidents. It would be a good indication of wilder areas.

Ride to Alaska! You'll see lots more wild land and animals than anything in the lower 48. I've rode the Continental Divide route in Montana, Idaho and Wyoming-- it's a nice ride, but nowhere near as wild as Cananda and Alaska.