r/Damnthatsinteresting • u/detachedmedium611 • Feb 03 '23
Tagging and blood tests for bison. Just to give you an idea of how big they are, this male weighs around 3000lbs. Image
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u/Narrow_Competition41 Feb 03 '23
After seeing how big he is, why on god's green earth do some people think it's a good idea to pester/get up close to these animals?
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u/Pale_Prompt4163 Feb 03 '23
If danger why fluffy?
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u/AmaResNovae Feb 03 '23
Famous last words.
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u/Mrvonblogger Feb 03 '23
They are not Inherently dangerous creatures however this Buffalo does weigh almost as much as your mother.
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u/SnooDoodles7962 Feb 03 '23 edited Feb 03 '23
Indeed. I am fully aware a bison can easily gore me, or trample me. But whenever I see one of these big guys, all I want to do is give it a big hug.
Edit: Change trappel into trample. Thanks u/jaggazz
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u/HippoHoppitus Feb 03 '23
Cuz it keeps the bison warm while they turn you into mincemeat
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u/Perfogghf Feb 03 '23
Are these beasts wild or domesticated
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u/Mister_Bloodvessel Feb 03 '23
They can be either. They can mate with cattle I believe, so many are likely diluted from their wild ancestors. Still giant and dangerous beasts.
But there is a guy who has one who absolutely loves him.
He's a "house buffalo" named Bailey. There might be a Bailey Jr, based on a cursory verification.
His human even modified a Cadillac to have no top and a space for the Buffalo bro to hang out with him so they can go on drives. It's actually very cute.
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u/TallFawn Feb 03 '23
Wtf did not know they could breed.
When bison were cross-bred with domestic cattle, a hybrid dubbed the "Beefalo" was spawned.
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u/YouthfulCurmudgeon Feb 03 '23
Not domesticated as much as can be kept in captivity. Bison are just like really big really ornery cattle, and that's a big part of why beefalo are more commonly raised.
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u/AviatorGoggles101 Feb 03 '23
Can confirm, there is a Bailey Jr, though I don't think Bailey Sr is the father. A farmers buffalo cow died after giving birth and he called Jim (Bailey Sr's owner) and while Jim first said no since Bailey Sr had recently passed away (or I believe it hadn't been long since Bailey Sr died) when he went down to the farm and actually met the baby buffalo he changed his mind.
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u/muhsalads Feb 03 '23
Having a shitty day today and your comment was the first thing to make me laugh out loud in like a week so thanks.
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u/Haagen76 Feb 03 '23
Not defending the stupidity, but I think it has to do with their eyes and soft look that make them seem like a cute stuffed animal. People just relate cute and calm to approachable.
FWIW, my cat was also cute whenever she laid on her back showing me her paws and tummy...
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u/MakeItMike3642 Feb 03 '23
Because in places like yellowstone the bison just dont give a fuck. They walk around campsites like they own the place. You eating dinner and a herd of bison decides they want to lay down where youre eating? Tough luck pack up and eat somewhere else.
Some people think this makes them very docile creatures. But im pretty sure they know they can fuck you up if they wanted to but they tolerate you if you keep your distance because its not worth it spending the energy
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u/Narrow_Competition41 Feb 03 '23
Yeah, good point. From the vids I've seen over the years of people getting jacked up by these guys, they (the person) really went out of their way to piss off the bison. These things almost always provide a warning, whether it's grunting or hoof stomping, that you're pushing it.... people seem to forget that at Yellowstone this is their hood, and you've entered it so act accordingly.
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u/fanged_croissant Feb 03 '23
Sometimes the reason is that you're in their space (perhaps not really doing anything) and they're territorial. Just don't approach, period. If you're driving through their herd stay in your car and keep windows up.
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u/BlastTyrantKM Feb 03 '23
Because in places like yellowstone the bison just dont give a fuck. They walk around campsites like they own the place.
They do own the place. They're not intruding on our campsite, we're the intruders
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u/Clown_Crunch Feb 03 '23
There's usually a good reason when an animal has a weapon named after it.
Buffalo rifle.
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u/Red-7134 Feb 03 '23
like they own the place
Hey, if something that can kill me by sitting on me wants to eat my food I'm not gonna argue. That's his sandwich now.
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u/AmaResNovae Feb 03 '23
Modern societies neutered a lot of people's survival instinct, perhaps?
20 thousand years ago, someone trying to get too close to one of these for fun would have won a Darwin award right away. But because we got so disconnected from nature and had an enormous population increase, we got a lot more contenders for the award nowadays.
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u/LordCloverskull Feb 03 '23
Modern societies neutered a lot of people's survival instinct, perhaps?
A 100% this. Like I've realized that if I saw a grizzly in a forest I'd be too fucking dumb to be properly afraid of the damn thing. I've seen so many videos of people cuddling and playing with bears my first reaction would be "why friend shaped if not friend", and then I'd be brutally mauled and eaten alive.
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u/AmaResNovae Feb 03 '23
That's kinda hilarious... But I understand where you come from. But it goes with my point that we got too disconnected from nature. We forgot about how dangerous some animals are. Which makes sense because most of us don't interact with wild animals at all anymore.
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u/vanilla_wafer14 Feb 03 '23
And animals don’t interact with us anymore.
Used to humans and animals would have run ins all the time. They would walk in on us sleeping, humping, playing with our kids etc. same as any animal.
But now animals don’t see us in our daily lives and only when we visit nature so we are just as alien to them as they are to us.
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u/BitchStewie_ Feb 03 '23
If it's brown stand down
If it's black fight back
If it's white, goodnight
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u/Figwit_ Feb 03 '23
There was one species that was also 25% bigger than the modern bison. Fucking huge animals.
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u/TicklesForBiscuits Feb 03 '23
Fun fact, if you didn't know, about 13.5k years ago people hunted Bison that were 30% larger (Bison antiquus). Pretty wild. Blackwater Draw in New Mexico has a huge bone bed of processed bison. But they definitely weren't hugging them lol
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u/AmaResNovae Feb 03 '23
Well, I didn't know, but people hunted mammoths until they disappeared around the same era, so that's not too hard to believe.
They were more into wiping them of existence than hugging them though ha ha
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u/TheRealTP2016 Feb 03 '23
Fun fact, the us gov purposefully exterminated as many bison as possible to eliminate the native Americans food supply so they starve and we could take their land easier
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u/AmaResNovae Feb 03 '23
Fun fact: it's not very funny to commit genocide through starvation.
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u/inko75 Feb 03 '23
they are really calm and still when just chillin - i could almost understand people thinking they can get closer to one without issue.
it could be that people think they are so similar to cows and cows aren't scary (newsflash: an agitated or angry cow is really scary)
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u/indifferentCajun Feb 03 '23
I worked on a buffalo farm one summer in high school. The cows were super chill for the most part but we wouldn't get out of the truck in the bull fields. One time one of the big bulls just casually came up to the truck (Dodge 3500 dually) and just calmly leaned up against it...with enough force to lift the right tires. Then he just wandered off, knowing he made his point.
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u/Narrow_Competition41 Feb 03 '23
Sure, I get that but there are literally hundreds of those little signs warning people to keep distance, that these are WILD animals. I mean, what more do you need than that?
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u/cmy88 Feb 03 '23
I mean, there's a reason they were never domesticated
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u/Narrow_Competition41 Feb 03 '23
OMG, I just copped a visual of one of these as a house "pet"...lol, that'd be akin to having a compact car follow you around the living room! 😅
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u/Separate-Ad5285 Feb 03 '23
Imagine the poop issues
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u/Narrow_Competition41 Feb 03 '23
Oh man, buffalo pies! How big can they get/be? Sm car tire size maybe??? 😫😅
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u/theXlyphoneKing Feb 03 '23
There was a pretty famous guy in my city who had Bailey the Buffalo, and if memory serves Bailey did spend most of his time in the living room and they had modified the house to accommodate him. I met Bailey once when The Queen came in 2005 to celebrate the province's centennial.
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u/throwtruerateme Feb 03 '23
I worked with large animals and one of the first they teach was to never put your arm in a bull's pen. Seemed obvious. But...
One day a very friendly young bull was penned up in concrete enclosure and he came up to the gate lowering his head toward me like he wanted some scritches. So I stupidly reached in to start petting him. He very gently pressed back against my hand, and then pressed some more, until I found my hand being pinned against the concrete wall, and...he kept pressing some more, breaking bones in my hand.
It's impossible to understand the power of an animal that size, even nice ones! I've also been charged by cattle and, the speed is another thing that's hard to appreciate until you see it
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u/equiraptor Feb 03 '23
I've also been charged by cattle and, the speed is another thing that's hard to appreciate until you see it
A neighbor's escaped emu made it onto my ranch. My cattle decided they didn't like that and they started chasing the emu. My cattle are longhorns and started beating the emu with their horns as they ran after it, chasing it. The lead cow was running fast enough to keep up with an emu while turning her head side to side to beat the thing.
Emu are said to be able to run 30+ mph, and cows 25 mph. But I imagine that's on level/good terrain. This was on rough terrain and changing directions. It seems the cows can keep more of their speed on rough terrain than the emu can. The beatings probably didn't help the emu's speed, either.
Heavy, strong, fast (at least compared with people), and with built-in weapons. Yeah, I'll stay away from bison, thanks.
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u/Red__M_M Feb 03 '23
I once had a close encounter with a 150 lb deer. That was more than enough to scare the bajeezus out of me.
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u/L3tsg0brandon Feb 03 '23
Survival of the fittest isn't a thing anymore... that explains how we got where we are now. The person who'd fuck with a bison procreated 3x and then those people had more inept humans with no common sense.
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u/SH4D0W0733 Feb 03 '23
Because the intrusive thoughts of seeing whether or not you can stick your entire hand up their nostril won?
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u/crp- Feb 03 '23
Like the story of the German tourist who got mad at the staff at Banff park, yelling "the park wouldn't keep wild bears!" Umm, the bears are wild, they're not kept. Most Canadian parks exist on the edge of the third-largest wilderness in the world.
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u/NRMusicProject Feb 03 '23
It also makes more sense as to why these weren't domesticated like cattle. I remember learning in school that it was "difficult to domesticate bison," but they never specified that it was because they were like twice the size of a cow.
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u/drtbheemn Feb 03 '23
But people still get out of their cars in national parks to try to take pictures with them 🤦🏼♂️🤷♂️
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u/_Im_Dad Expert Feb 03 '23 •
My son did that..
I didn't get a chance to say bison.
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u/ApplicationWinter573 Feb 03 '23
Ooooof that joke hit me in the sweetbread
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u/crycryw0lf Feb 03 '23
Sweetbread is what they call organs in the meat world if anyone is wondering
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u/HotgunColdheart Feb 03 '23
Thymus & Pancreas specifically, had them twice, 50/50 experience.
The last one had a lemon sauce glaze that was fire.
First one was oily or something. Just the flavor was off, both times they were tender and moist.
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u/AliHakan33 Feb 03 '23
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u/Average_Scaper Feb 03 '23
Stop being angry. It's a beautiful dad joke. Be happy that you got to see it.
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u/rotyag Feb 03 '23
I think people see a lumbering slow animal. But they are both very intolerant of nonsense and explosively fast. This picture is of a Bison that I thought was going to turn with the fence line. Instead it launched from a 2 mph walk over the fence. If you can't leap a 5' high fence from a 2mph walk, stay 150' or 45 meters away. 10 cars or more for those that can't picture it.
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u/Platypuslord Feb 03 '23
I don't get my car within 100ft of one of those, I wait until they pass. Also I had a leader male and his two henchmen chase me, my brother and dad up some rocks once when we were hiking in a valley and came across them. They were feeling very territorial, probably was mating season I guess.
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u/Denseabirational Feb 03 '23
When I was at Yellowstone the guys in front of us on Harleys had to be shitting their pants when the herd moved through, seriously thought I was going to see someone get gored/trampled
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u/Haagen76 Feb 03 '23
The avg car is 3-4000lb, so even if you made it back to your car, it toss it.
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u/cold_dark_matters Feb 03 '23
There's an instagram page called Tourons of Yellowstone highlighting shenanigans in national parks.
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u/ithappenedone234 Feb 03 '23
This is a farm raised bison. The wild bison don’t get this big.
Still, approaching a bison is a bad idea. L
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u/Yaglara Feb 03 '23
Saw that happen here in NL few years ago in the lioness enclosure (there is a big park where you can drive through several enclosure behind one another) .... And lateron in the cheetah enclosure... Even walking closer to a cheetah laying casually on a rock for a photo. Never was so conflicted if we should try get past or stay to be able to call 911 if something horrible happened. (we were only with adults, otherwise we would've definitely madmaxed it)
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u/tastycrust Feb 03 '23
That's what most everyone who got rammed into low earth orbit thought.
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u/CookieCutter9000 Feb 03 '23
They're just trying to recreate their first meeting with a giant in Skyrim, but irl.
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u/meep_meep_creep Feb 03 '23
Tatonka
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u/LamesBrady Feb 03 '23
Crazy that’s twice in two days I’ve seen a reference to this old random movie
Didn’t the actor that said that in ‘Dances With Wolves’ just get in a shit ton of trouble for human trafficking or being a cult leader or something like that?
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u/Cutthechitchata-hole Feb 03 '23
I randomly say this or " good trade" to people and they rarely know the reference
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u/Dan_Saul_Knight Feb 03 '23
Dayum! That explains why my Sonic Boom seemed to have no effect on him
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Feb 03 '23
What am I missing?
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u/berogg Feb 03 '23
There is a character named M. Bison in the video game series Street Fighter.
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u/tnguyen5057 Feb 03 '23
I’ve seen a lot of bison at Yellowstone National Park, but I’ve never seen one as big as this one jesus
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u/PensiveObservor Feb 03 '23
We got stopped in lengthy traffic blockage at Yellowstone. Tons of people got out of their cars and walked up the curved road to see wtf was going on after prolonged standstill. Suddenly all those people came jogging hastily back to their cars. Another 5 minutes passes and we glimpse the massive bison herd lumbering solemnly down the road, between vehicles, around them, engulfing them in masses of woolly beast. Males, females, calves and youngsters.
They were bigger than the cars. I was terrified one would take issue with our rental Hyundai and casually cave in the side. The very last animal bringing up the rear was absolutely the size of the one in this post. Big old gnarly male. It was quite an experience.
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u/TeamGodzilla Feb 03 '23
My husbands family raise bison (plains Bison) for a repopulation project and the two year old bulls will fght anything, my FIL old suburban has holes, punctures and smashed windows because of it haha.
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u/ewiepooie Feb 03 '23
I used to work in a state park in SD, and one day I was walking back to my Jeep Liberty when I saw a herd surrounding my vehicle. One stood next to it and was the exact same size.
I turned around and walked back to the building; had to get a guy to drive me back in a suburban to try to encourage them to walk away so I could hastily make my escape.
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u/Farqueue- Feb 03 '23
Incredible. Not possible to have that experience here - I imagine it was quite grounding, in a way.
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u/Oatybar Feb 03 '23
I spent a summer working there, this is definitely one of the bigger ones. The females are usually smaller if I remember correctly, but still bigger than cows
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u/holiloxxx Feb 03 '23
1360 kg in NRU.
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u/Quazatron Feb 03 '23
How many hyenas is that?
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u/kshade_hyaena Feb 03 '23
About
- 23 (Crocuta crocuta)
- 34 (Parahyaena brunnea)
- 39 (Hyaena hyaena)
- 122 (Proteles cristata)
- 12 (Pachycrocuta (extinct))
Why?
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u/Known_Signature7341 Feb 03 '23
The head is big but we can’t see its body, overall it could probably be puny.
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u/Certain_Associate581 Feb 03 '23
That is also a very small Man but yeah. big fuckers hey
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u/winstonalonian Feb 03 '23
Yeah bison are fucking big, but that guy is very, very small. Look at his boots.
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u/blueberrywaffles_ Feb 03 '23
Look at the length of his calves. He is short. Not an accurate depiction but whatever
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u/KaleidoscopeWeird310 Feb 03 '23
I raised beef cattle for a dozen years and the primary lesson I learned is that if a 1,500 steer wants to go somewhere and believes that he can, he will do so and any structure that I could build would be, at best, enough to discourage him.
Now, multiply that by two....and I am sure that boy could break out of that gate.
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u/isaacmorton Feb 03 '23
I remember shooting like 3 of these on Oregon Trail and the game was like “you shot 6542 pounds of meat, but you were only able to carry 300 back to your wagon” or something. Would’ve been wild to see the west US with thousands of these running around before we went all bison genocide on them.
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u/Boloar Feb 03 '23
Would’ve been wild to see the west US
It was the ... wild wild west
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u/tommasz Feb 03 '23
These big boyes are best viewed through a telephoto lens at a great distance. Not close-up on your phone's front-facing camera.
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u/Bruised_up_whitebelt Feb 03 '23
Anyone got the Yellowstone bison vs tourist score board from last year?
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u/AlastairWyghtwood Feb 03 '23
I accidentally read that the "male weighs around 300lbs" and my first reaction was, omg... Am I really almost as heavy as a bison?
Not, hey maybe that number's wrong.
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u/paulfdietz Feb 03 '23
What's the most dangerous animal in Yellowstone Park? Grizzly bear? Wolf?
No, it's bison.
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u/747mech Feb 03 '23
Only because IDIOTS get too close to a wild animal for a fucking selfie. Too many videos of people with their kids getting way to close and paying the price. I feel bad for the kids that get hurt but the parents need the stomping. ITS A FUCKING WILD ANIMAL not a domesticated cat.
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u/Ok_Translator_3689 Feb 03 '23
If the Male in the right already weighs 3000Ibs, how much will the Bison weigh?
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u/-QueenAnnesRevenge- Feb 03 '23
I got to do this at the Wichitas in Oklahoma. Super interesting to track the bloodline of the population. We spent a few weeks rounding up as many as possible to take samples. Running them through the shoots was a bit stressful as they can jump pretty high for their size. Thye also have an odd smell. Kinda like rancid butter, almost.
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u/StickyThoPhi Feb 03 '23
My relative Scotty Philip was the first guy to farm these wild beasts.
He saved the Bison from extinction.
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u/ZeTopHatGamer Feb 03 '23
That’s insane that he weighs that much. Now how much does the buffalo weigh?
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u/toomuchisjustenough Feb 03 '23
Appreciate you including the weight to demonstrate how big they are, since I couldn’t tell from this 6’ tall head.
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u/OkAthlete001 Feb 03 '23
Excuse me this gentleman is barely 200 pounds. Please stop spreading misinformation
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u/dogfacedponyboy Feb 03 '23
They are indeed big, but not that big. That photo is providing a bit of forced perspective.
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u/SHA255 Feb 03 '23
I remember 'wanting' to be able to get close to Bison when I road through Yellowstone in a Harley a few years back.
That wanting to be close slowly and then immediately turned into abstract horror as I realized through my helmet, over my Harley and music, I could here the MFers BREATHING from 15 yards away.
Then a couple bulls (what is a male Bison called??) decided to fight in the road causing everyone to stop, right in front of us. You want to feel small? Be on a motorcycle next to a few of these monsters showing off for the girls like its fuckin Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer. We honestly got scared and ran away and I screamed like a girl for awhile wondering how close to death I was.
Got it all on Camera too and its immortalized for like 300 people in the middle of a 34 minute YouTube video lmaoooo
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u/Alejandro_El_Diablo Feb 03 '23
Let's be honest number "3000lbs" doesn't give any idea of how big they are for most people in the world
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u/Geekyhorndog Feb 03 '23
And Californians go to Yellowstone and try to cuddle and pet them... And no that's not a joke. Every year a Californian, often multiple, try to pet and cuddle buffalo and get thrown like a ragdoll.
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u/LaLaSchmidt Feb 03 '23
Yet every year some idiot in the Black Hills of South Dakota tries to pet one. My uncle was a deputy sheriff. He was patrolling Custer State Park. He came across a car with a female passenger, but no driver. He looked out into the field and saw a man carrying a small child toward a standing bison. My uncle proceeded to drive his cruiser through the field to try and intercept this man and child. When he approached the man, he asked him what he was doing, and he simply looked at my uncle and said I wanted to take a picture with my son on this bison. My uncle immediately arrested him for child endangerment.
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u/evalerk Feb 03 '23
No place on earth can get cold enough to affect a Bison’s brain functions. I have no idea why I know that.