During the breeding season, dominant bulls maintain a small harem of females for mating. Individual bulls "tend" cows until allowed to mate, by following them around and chasing away rival males. The tending bull shields the female's vision with his body so she will not see any other challenging males. This is actually how I got engaged
I love Obama for a million reasons One was making it the national mammal Wyoming has the GOAT state flag
The bison is 6-6.5 feet tall, 10-12 feet long, weighs 2000 lbs, runs 40 mph and can jump six feet in the air
Did bird surveys up in the dakotas on public and private lands stocked with Bison. They are awesome. One day I was hiking ~5mi off the trail at wind cave national park to start my surveys. Little did I know, my coworker had just startled the entire herd of bison on her transect and they took off running right at me. Probably 100 of them charged about 50yds from me while I slowly backed up. The big ass males kept staring at me and stopping. Was pretty damn cool and also terrifying. Another day we were camping in the backcountry at teddy Roosevelt national park. Up on this plateau in the middle of the park. Didn't realize the bison were up there with us until we woke up and found we were about 10 yards from the herd. Watched them graze past us and take dust baths.
We had the windows down at Yellowstone during a buffalo traffic jam and one walked to to our van like it was going to stick it’s head in. We were far enough away to close the windows in time, but I thought for sure it was going to head butt a nice dent in my door.
Guy I know's parents had the only Bison farm in Louisiana when he was growing up. He told me every now and then they get loose from their fence and wander along the nearby highways terrifying and confusing the locals. State Troopers would call up the family, and he'd show up with the trailer. All of 5'5" 120 lbs of clearly gay 16 year old would round them up. While the country ass state troopers had their pistols drawn and wouldn't go within 20 feet of the damn things. Guy used to have a great apartment in NY right across the hall from Henry Kissinger. Now he is a coder out in Silicon Valley.
That's just a small fraction of Ted Turners herd outside of Rapid City. Got to go stay in his guest house while scouting out the property for the next season of surveys. Unfortunately wasn't able to get out into his pastures because the bulls were in rut and had been chasing around the ranch hands.
Came for some grilling tips Bison is delicious Also Steven Rinella has a great book: American Buffalo: In Search of a Lost Icon
This guy came up to my truck and gave me a real long stare before moving on, when I went to yellowstone 9 years ago
sometime in the late 70s/early 80s, my grandad drove out to colorado and bought some buffalo, with the intent to breed them and make beefalo. He got them back to SC, but the whole affair didn't go well, the buffalo didn't seem to like being fenced in. One of them rammed a metal barn and got caught halfway, and they had to saw him in half to get him out.
Farm near where I grew up has been raising them since roughly the same time. Part of the area where they have the bison fenced is wooded. The bison are almost always back in the wooded area.
Fun fact: horse trainers that train horses for cow horse events will exchange cows for bison time to time because bison are faster so the horse has to train at a quicker pace.
We took a snow coach into Yellowstone in December. Bison were just chilling 10 yards away. Also saw a herd of 100+ on our way there. Fun fact bison are one of the few animals that face the wind instead of away from it. I'll see if I can get some better pics from wife later, all I have are pics I took Spoiler
You left out the most interesting part. They charge thru storms so that they get out of them faster. Yep. That's right. That animals instinct is that if a storm is going east at 15mph and a bison can travel at 10 mph going west at the same time, it'll be a quick storm.
If any of you make it to the Black Hills, Custer state park is a pretty awesome stop. ~1000 free roaming bison. The wildlife loop is a good drive
Mike MacIntyre actually brought up a picture of a buffalo in a snowstorm to a press conference and told this story right before he was about to get canned. Cornfed Buffalo loved it.
One more Black Hills plug, Custer State Park has a bison round up each year in the Fall. The entity which operates the Crazy Horse Memorial allows hikers out on to the arm of the monument (still under construction) for two times a year, one of which is the weekend of the round up. The Crazy Horse event is called Volksmarch. It’s a 10k hike and then climb. They do it the first weekend in June and last weekend in September. I did it in June 2015, but we got the base of the mountain and had to turn around because lightening struck. Missed going up as a result.
Pace and endurance. Cattle get tired and quit moving but buffaloes are much closer to wild animals and will keep moving away. Plus, they're delicious once fattened up.
My friend has some on his farm and they're awesome. The alpha's name is bill and hes a scary son of a bitch
Another fun bison story. Got to help with the bison round up at the Wichita Mountains NWR in Oklahoma. Helped process the calves and cows in the chute. Towards the end they brought in the big ass ornery bulls. One of those big angry fuckers refused to go to the chute, so they brought in a bobcat covered in padding. Some dude just drove at the bison while it was going wild just charging at him and pounding on it until he got pushed through. That was fucking awesome.