Tourists Get Trapped By Bison Stampede In Custer State Park

Bison stampede at Custer State Park
Max Kaufman

Talk about things you want to see, but also don’t really want to see…

Visitors to South Dakota’s Custer State Park, a 71,000 square acre reserve rich in wildlife, found themselves in the midst of one of nature’s most powerful events as a herd of bison began stampeding from a nearby field and were forced to wait out the event in their cars.

According to the National Park Service, most bison live in herds of 300-500, but Custer National Park is home to around 1,500 of these once near extinct American beauties, so we can’t be sure exactly how many were involved in this event, but it was clearly a lot.

From the video, it seems there were somewhat calm bison roaming slowly on the street when a stampede from a field off to the left hit the roadway, which caused those bison to start running too.

The stampede took the path of least resistance and bison began flying down the pavement, weaving in and out of cars containing a bunch of what I assume to be terrified tourists.

And while many people, myself included, say they’d love to witness one of these epic moments, I’m sure those stuck in the dusty chaos of it were less than pleased.

Sure, the bison will try to avoid you because if they fall down or can’t keep up they’ll be trampled under thousands of hooves, but the idea that one hitting your car may cause you to be trampled under thousands of pounds of American muscle is just horrifying.

All cause you wanted to impress your family with the coolest vacation ever, talk about bad luck.

Fortunately, in the video it seems like no damage was done to any of the cars as the bison avoided them and continued on their thoughtless sprint through the plains.

Nature will forever be impressive.

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