I’m a little birded out so thought I would post something a little bigger today. Years ago we camped in Yellowstone for a week in the first week of June and had a great time. The advantage of doing it in an RV is you can just pull over at a lookout and watch the animals come out near sunrise or sunset. We brought our dog which looking back was a mistake. He was not a fan of long road trips and though he usually barked at any other creatures he saw, he looked out the window at one of these guys and just said “nope”. Dogs are not allowed on any trails in the park so he only got outdoor time at the campsites. The largest and least afraid of people are the Bison. They walk the roads like they own the place.
They mostly keep to themselves, so much that you kind of get used to them. I almost learned the hard way that they are very much wild creatures and keep your distance. This guy gave me that look like, I think you are close enough asshole!
You can go to almost any valley around Yellowstone and catch a glimpse of these beautiful creatures.
It gets a little itchy as they lose their winter coats.
Best part about going in early June is the babies are just coming out.
If you go, I highly recommend driving out the south gate to the Grand Tetons in Wyoming. Every picture you take there is like a postcard.
Hope you enjoyed my trip down memory lane. I’ll expand to some other wildlife tales soon but feel free to tell me your large creature experiences.
Dat baby – swoon!
…I camped in yellowstone one time (many moons ago) & I remember one of the park rangers telling me a story about how some tourist had got bored with only seeing bison laying on the ground & wanting a better photo so he told his friend “you stay by the car with the camera – I’ll go give that one a kick”
…turns out they weigh more than some cars & run faster than a lot of people…so they pretty much had to take the friend’s word for that being how things had gone?
…beautiful place, though…& some nice pictures you got
Did a drive-through of Yellowstone on my way home from working the summer at Denali National Park. Saw lots of bison on the road about as close as your shots.
During my seasons at Denali, got to see plenty of large animals. Moose (who like to walk out into the middle of the highway and just stop there and hold up traffic), bears, wolves and even some bison.
I continue to be baffled by the number of morons out there who seem to think that these creatures are little more than muppets who won’t fucking kill you the minute you step out of line. They’re called “wildlife” for a reason.
I wonder, sometimes, if many of the folks who do the stupid shit around Bison do it because they think they’re basically just “overgrown cows with little horns” and that they don’t realize just how deadly even the “gentle” cows can be…
‘Cuz there are a whole lot of folks out there, who’ve only ever seen movie cattle, or the pics/videos of cows placidly chewing out in a field–or they see cows being milked & looking all docile…
They don’t know what those of us who grew up around farm kids saw during outer childhoods–the weeks-long bruises left, after someone got bitten by a cow.. or walked behind one, and spooked it–getting the old salad (sometimes dinner)-plate sized bruise, which lasted for WEEKS, before it finally faded away…
Folks also don’t seem to truly grok the size of a buffalo… they hear they’re from the same animal family as a cow, and think, “Oh, yeah, I know how big that is!” And think of an animal 4-5ish feet tall at the withers (shoulder)….
They don’t get that an American Bison is 6′ to 6 1/2′ at the shoulder….
Or, to put it into “sprotz people-sized” terms, the difference between your average point-guard/small forward in pro basketball, and someone from the middle or anywhere, really, on the offensive line on a pro football team….
Yellowstone was the last family vacation before the Bad Times came. We saw a bunch of Bison including some calves, but none as little as that baby. We saw a ton of elk too, and a few mule deer which seemed microscopic compared to the bigger animals.
Outside of the park we were lucky to catch some pronghorns and also saw mountain goats on a mountain we hiked. It’s not a zoo for sure, but it’s impressive how much wildlife there is.
I worked at the newspaper in Idaho Falls, which is about 90 minutes south of West Yellowstone, Montana. We were kind of the “paper of record” for the park and had a reporter assigned to it as a beat.
We had wrapped up the morning press run, and I walked over to talk to the reporter about a story that he would have for tomorrow’s paper. As we were talking, I glanced down to his desk at a photo sitting there.
The photo showed a middle-age guy standing maybe 10 feet away from a bison, facing away from the bison toward the camera. I asked the reporter, “What’s this?” He replied, “That’s the ‘before’ photo.” I responded with, “Is there an ‘after’ photo?”, generally knowing where this was going. “[The photographer] is developing it now.” (Yes, still in the age of film cameras, dark rooms, contact sheets, etc.)
The reporter then told me the story. Dude wanted a photo with a buffalo, so he pulled up near one, walked over, and had his wife shoot a photo. Once the shutter had clicked a few times, the bison decided he’d had enough. He charged Mr. Tourist, gored Mr. Tourist, and then TOSSED MR. TOURIST APPROXIMATELY 15 FEET IN THE AIR. At least he walked away after that instead of trampling the guy, which does happen on occasion.
The guy survived, and the reporter and photographer visited with him in the hospital. I don’t know what ultimately happened to the guy, but the prognosis was permanent limitations with his gored leg (the bison’s horn hit the femoral artery, which is bad) plus some possible spinal issues (but not paralysis) from his landing.
Bottom line: Leave the goddamn bison alone. They are more dangerous than the bears or the moose.
My best friend and her family live in Cody Wyoming so I tend go out every other year or so. Love spending time in Yellowstone and yes, we always laugh at whatever idiot has gotten too close to a bison or disintegrated in a hot spring. (eww!)
It’s amazing how creatively you can die in that area. Highly recommend the book Death in Yellowstone.