It’s truly incredible the quality of wildlife videos we have at our fingertips at any given time.
One quick search on YouTube and you’re scrolling through as many videos of grizzlies, moose, elephants, tigers, alligators, and literally whatever else you want for as long as you want to watch them.
In this environment of near infinite choices, there’s bound to be a few videos that get overlooked for one reason or another and I’d like to present one of those to you right now.
Posted by wildlife photographer Greg Balvin, this video is one of the highest quality videos you’ll ever see of two massive bison brawling during the rut. Despite it being shot in 4K HD and showing one of the most intense, longest lasting brawls out there, it’s somehow only racked up just under 62 thousand views as of the time I’m writing this.
We don’t know exactly where this takes place because he included Grand Teton, Jackson Hole, and Yellowstone in the title but somewhere in Wyoming he was able to get video of these two bulls going at it for mating rights.
Normally, we see bison touch heads and then start pushing, but that was not the case in the slightest for these guys. They rammed their heads together multiples times at full blast, slamming skulls like I’ve only seen bighorn sheep do previously. Dust and dirt and hair fly everywhere as they go at it for well over 3 minutes, again a rarity in this encounters.
We don’t get to see a clear resolution, but maybe that’s the point. Is there ever true closure in nature, or does it just open the door for more opportunities and learning experiences down the road?
Well, I guess the ultimate closure happens when a predator downs some prey, but in this case, one will stake their claim to the nearby females and the other will lick his chops and move on down the road to try again.
The circle of life.
