Petting bison... again

It appears to me that those might be bison heifers or cows that haven't yet calved this year. The video isn't that distinct, but I don't see any bulls — which might be a bit more temperamental. In my experience, it is not unusual for bison to walk a paved road for some length while in the process of crossing the road.

In the video, it appears that the lead cow is seeking to complete its crossing but is blocked in by the bumper-to-bumper line of cars. And the blockage situation may be as bad behind the photographer taking the video. So not only are those tourists taking big chances, they are interfering with the bisons' movements.

Fast forward into rutting season, and add a couple bulls to the herd. We might have something similar to a bowling ball tossing ten-pins aside, right and left.

While traversing Santa Catalina Island, we'd occasionally see bison/buffalo off and away from us calmly grazing. One of the days we crossed a dirt 4WD road cut from a fairly steep ridge and voila! One BIG!! bull, head down standing his ground in the middle of the cut, pawing and snuffling the ground, throwing dirt and dust backward. UT OH! I figured we ought to treat it like a carnivore - slowly backed up and avoided eye contact. Soooo it followed us pushing us back with waves of its massive head, snorts and bluff 'charges' of about two feet.

Then in an instant he was gone! That huge beast turned 180 degrees jumped at least 10 feet up on the side of the steep road cut and scrambled over the top of the ridge with ease and out of sight with a few graceful bounds. Concern was instantly replaced with relief and then concern again as we realized that critter could easily have taken us out if it was having a bad day. We continued on but with less of a jaunty and cavalier foot step. For the rest of the day, with paranoia at full tilt, we'd send somebody ahead to peer around blind corners or ridges.

The HUGE feral pigs are a story for another time. We didn't find out about the pygmy mastodons, now extinct, until years later. And all this only "26 miles across the sea".

Ha! Every small group has a temporary/special assignment 'village idiot' or one that will volunteer to 'take one for the Giffer'. Kinda nice 'cause they are also the ones that will brave the skeeters to go pump water for the rest of us when we camp late in the day.

In this case the primary qualification was who could run the fastest - if needed.

I downloaded the video, slowed it to about one frame / second, and put that segment on repeat to watch it over several times. There is one animal that I won't entirely rule out, but I'm skeptical of it being a bull — of breeding age, anyhow. It's too early for breeding season and no calves are apparent. During such times of year, Yellowstone bison tend to form smaller groups, or "cow groups" — led by dominant cows.

We may be mid-way in the calving season at best, so I'd expect any calves to be small and inclined to stay near to their mothers. And the mothers would be very protective and, in my experience, be quite a bit more leery of humans. Even with the human-bison habituation happening in Yellowstone, those cows are deceptively docile.

But either way, with the uncertainty you noted, bison are unpredictable. They can appear docile one moment and cantankerous in the next. Looking two weeks further into calving season or a month and a half into breeding season, and I suspect the herd dynamics would be even riskier for those clueless people there. With calves nearby and then bulls looking to mate, the bison docility might expire much more quickly and some tourist's butt get tossed out of the way.

It's pretty rare for careful people to get gored by bison. But there are plenty of reckless people to keep these incidents in the news through the summer.

The stupidity and self absorption of people never cease to amaze me. Not only is it the issue of getting far too "up close and personal" with wild animals, but it's the obsessions of photographing oneself or others with these animals, as if they're long lost relatives. I was surprised the first small group didn't put out their arms and start hugging one of the animals, which I thought were remarkably patient with the interlopers.

I could see adapting to the irresponsibility of sightseers by building overpasses over bison area, but why should that expense be incurred? And why accommodate them?

It's sad that so many of the human species can't accept the fact that these animals don't need to have interactions with people and have the right to be left to live their lives as they would naturally.

Travis, wasn't it you who posted a response from someone (on another forum obviously) saying that the animals in NPs are pets and should be petted? Or something similar.

This no longer surprises me.  One needs to look no further than this years presidential race to realize that that there are a lot of people like this out there.