Have You Seen This? Obstruct the bison and pay the price

Deep crusty snow forces the bison to remain on the icy roadways and put Alaskan motorists at serious risk, according to a video posted to YouTube on Jan. 27.

Deep crusty snow forces the bison to remain on the icy roadways and put Alaskan motorists at serious risk, according to a video posted to YouTube on Jan. 27. (Kurt Schmidt via YouTube)


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OUT IN NATURE — There are a few things in life that we can all agree on. For example, everyone knows that bison are massive animals that shouldn't be trifled with.

On second thought, this apparently is not common knowledge. It seems that every few days I'm seeing another headline like, "Yellowstone tourist attempts to ride bison" or "Local man gored by bison after posing for selfie."

Is it so difficult to understand that you shouldn't mess with large wild animals with horns? I can see how you might get lulled into a false sense of security by the lumbering way that bison move around. They don't look like they'd get agitated by much of anything.

But bison can run up to 35 mph. And you can't. So it's not wise to tempt fate.

As this video shows, even when you're in the safety of a car, you need to keep your head on a swivel in bison country.

I'm not quite sure the best way to handle this type of "bison on the roadway" situation. According to the caption, deep snow prevented the herd from going off-road. They had nowhere else to go but over the car in their path.

I guess if you ever find yourself in similar circumstances, you should just back up and avoid the potential for a collision.

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Grant Olsen joined the KSL.com contributor team in 2012. He covers outdoor adventures, travel, product reviews and other interesting things. He is also the author of the book “Rhino Trouble.”

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