Over the weekend, a 900kg bison in Yellowstone, Wyoming went from lying placidly in the dust to charging anything and anyone in sight. First, it moved on an idling pickup, which drove off. Then it targeted a grandfather and his grandson who had been standing at a distance filming the large creature with their phones.
The pair took refuge in the nearby woods, while the bison stomped nearby angrily. The grandson escaped, but the older man ran out and briefly took refuge behind a tree. When the bison reemerged, the man circled around again through the trees. The bison caught up to him in the clearing, hooked him in the hip with its left horn, and flipped him high in the air.
Professional photographer Mike MacLeod from Bozeman, Montana, filmed the encounter from a safe distance. He said the grandfather and his grandson were likewise at a respectful distance. But this is the rutting season for bison, and are easy to agitate as they compete for status with other males.
Three meters in the air
MacLeod told the local Cowboy State Daily that after the old man came crashing down from about three meters in the air, he was worried the bison would gore the prone victim. So he ran at the bison, yelling, accompanied by some other observers. The animal ran off.
MacLeod says people do dumb things in Yellowstone all the time, but this wasn’t one of those cases. The two people were at a distance and began to move off as soon as the bison got up out of the dust. It had already chased other people before this event. It seemed to be spoiling for a fight, MacLeod suggested, and the pickup truck might have set off that new round of aggression.
The grandson told MacLeod that his grandfather was seriously injured and is not “out of the woods” yet.
