Anything for some social media clout…
Although bison are best known for their massive herds in the Great Plains, Alaska actually was once home to its own population of bison, but those in the wild went extinct before the 1900s rolled around from unregulated hunting by settlers to the area. The Last Frontier remained bison-less until 2005, when the Alaska Wildlife Conservation Center teamed up with the Alaska Department of Fish and Game to reintroduce wood bison to their native lands.
Over the next 10 years, the joint effort began raising a herd of healthy bison and in 2015, 130 wood bison were successfully released into the wild, where they have remained a small, but stable group ever since.
Obviously, this is a huge win for the area and its local residents, who now get to enjoy the sights of nature’s most majestic beasts, but it doesn’t mean everyone is going to behave themselves, like we see in this video.
While driving down an Alaskan highway near Yukon, an absolute idiot spots some bison on the side of the road and decides he’s going to get as close as possible to them for some unknown reason.
With his phone in hand filming his moronic encounter, he slowly approaches the nearest bison, who immediately perks up and begins assessing the situation. Not once, but twice the large creature gives a small charge at the man, who laughs it off and continues putting himself in a lot of danger.
Not going to lie, I was kind of hoping to see something along the lines of this happen, but alas, he escaped and went on to post his video for the world to see.
He’ll get his at some point, but man, can we stop harassing the bison?
