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Posted by Francoise Musgrove (87.49.43.208) on 09:53:16 07/12/26
In Reply to: Oh, when will they ever learn... posted by 46er
"....This is Yellowstone s second human-bison incident in 2026. The first occurred on June 26, when a 12-year-old was injured near Mud Volcano, north of Fishing Bridge.
What stuck out to MacLeod in the Friday incident was that nobody was at fault for what happened at Bridge Bay Campground. People do stupid things in Yellowstone all the time, but this wasn t one of those cases.
I didn't see anybody getting close, he said. People were yelling, Careful, there s a bison coming through, and they kept their distance. They were very respectful.
In this incident, the bull bison was the instigator. MacLeod said it was extremely evident that the bison entered Bridge Bay with a chip on its humped shoulder.
You can tell he was agitated, pissed off, and charging anything and everything, he said.
The biological explanation for what happened is the annual bison rut, which runs from June to September. During that time, bull bison surge with energy and aggression as they compete for dominance and females.
MacLeod doesn t blame anyone, especially not the victim or his grandson, for what happened.
They were just out for an evening walk, just happened to turn around the corner, and there s a bison, he said.
In MacLeod s opinion, this bull bison was looking for a fight and, for reasons known only to itself, chose those two as the targets of its aggression.
I ve been around bison for a while, but this was really weird, he said. Why did it pick those two? There were so many people around, and most of them were closer to and behind the bison. It was really weird. So there is no lesson to be learned except to get a story right.
Andrew Rossi can be reached at arossi@cowboystatedaily.com.
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