What happens when both the wolves and the bison have strength in numbers?
In case you didn’t know, Yellowstone National Park is currently blanketed in snow. That’s closed down a lot of roadways throughout the park’s sprawling property, but it hasn’t stopped the wildlife from participating in their regularly scheduled activities.
Like wolves trying to make a meal out of bison.
Wolves have long been been known to hunt down bison, thought they often need a pack of canines working together to take down just one of the big beasts. As you might imagine, bison are rather tough creatures and can be quite the challenge to bring down.
The predatory animals have the best odds to take down a bison when they can sequester one off on its own. Bison do practice that “herd mentality” that you’ve likely heard of, meaning that they will often stand up for one another in an effort to keep their entire group safe.
One of the ways bison avoid attacks is by “putting it into drive” and running as a herd. That strategy sometimes makes it easier for wolves, or whatever is chasing the large land animals, to get at least one bison to break away. So that’s why they also sometimes bunch up and stand their ground, and that’s the method you’ll see in the video below.
Bison have no problem traversing the winter wonderland that takes over Yellowstone this time of the year. They’re basically just natural-born snow plows, and they also benefit from having their coat’s thicken up into the winter season to counter the frigid temperatures and blankets of snow that often fall in their North Americans habitats. It’s not the snow and cold temperatures that will get bison during the winter time… it’s the tough predators that are willing to battle harsh conditions for a fresh meal.
This wolf pack was doing everything it could to single out a bison from the herd, but the 2,000 pound beasts were playing things safe. If one of them lowered their head and ran at one of the wolves, the rest of the bison moved together towards the lone bison. They’ve evidently been around the block a time or two and are familiar with how wolves try to hunt them.
The canines weren’t backing down, but they weren’t making any progress either. As the wolves got closer to the herd, the group of bison seemed to all point themselves towards the potential danger and stuck together. All in all, it was a masterclass in herd strength.
And honestly, it’s a really cool video to be captured. Though there’s no real attack featured in the clip, it showcases the strategies that both bison use to protect themselves and wolves use when hunting. The tense standoff was a literal and figurative display of butting heads.
We don’t know how the wolves-versus-bison meeting concluded, but one could imagine that the wolves stayed stubborn and stalked the herd for quite some time. However, with how the bison in this clip were holding their formation, I’d say the wolves were just wasting their time and energy – all while also battling the winter elements of Yellowstone National Park.
Check it out:
