Wildlife watching and photography in Yosemite National Park can be a fun experience. The park itself has a rich variety of wildlife habitat condusive to a wide variety of creatures, both large and small.

Black bear: Found all over the park. 300-500 bears in Yosemite National Park itself.

Northern Goshawk: This rare predator is found in the old growth forests of the park.

Great Gray Owls: Pine forests at the edges of meadows in lowlight hours.

Mule Deer: All over Yosemite National Park and easily seen.

Western fence lizard: All over dry areas of the park.

Rattlesnake: Dry rocky areas at lower elevations

Wolverine: Extremely rare and at high elevations.

Fisher: Deep pine forests with blowdown

Pine Marten: Deep pine forests with blowdown

Bighorn Sheep: Lee Vining Canyon


As always, low light hours are the best for seeing wildlife, but also the hardest to get pictures in. For landscape shots, a standard consumer 3x zoom digital camera will do the job. For DSLR users, the standard 17-50mm range (28 to 100+) on a 1.6x crop will work great for landscapes. For those looking to capture images of wildlife, you will want at least a 300mm zoom. For birds in flight, 400mm is ideal. The large, old growth forests of Yosemite can be dark during daylight hours so a tripod is often required to obtain blur-free images.