The science behind bison surviving – and thriving – in winter weather is truly fascinating.
Anytime I see a video like this of a wild animal literally weathering the weather, I always remember that a wildlife photographer also had to be out in the nasty wintry mix to capture it all on camera. This footage below is truly remarkable, and we all get to see it thanks to the work of an author and photographer by the name Michael Hodges.
It’s gotten a lot of attention on social media, and rightfully so. It shows a bison that looks as though it’s practically frozen. But before you go and feel bad for the bison, just know that it’s a-okay. Someone in the comments of the post even mentioned that it’s a good thing that bison are built for the changing seasons of Yellowstone National Park.
That’s very much true.
As bison head into the winter season, their coat thickens up to counter the frigid temperatures and blankets of snow that often fall in their North Americans habitats. Those wooly coats play an intricate role in keeping them warm through the winter, and allegedly create such a layer of insulation that snow that lands on their coat will not melt from the heat the bison’s skin gives off.
Bison pair their thickening coats (and skin) with their ability to derive sufficient nutrients from very small amounts of food, which is usually vegetation that peeks through the snow. All of these qualities allow for bison to survive the toughest of winter conditions, and those conditions were shown in the breathtaking footage below out of Yellowstone National Park.
Michael Hodges captured this incredible video of a bison in Yellowstone that he nicknamed “The Mighty Ice Bison.” Now, it appears to me that this is a video that he probably took during last year’s harsh winter within the national park. Yellowstone has yet to reach blizzard conditions in 2025, as the worst of the winter season for that area tends to fall around December through February.
That being said, the territory sees harsh winter conditions – and is often covered in snow – from the middle of October all the way to the early portions of May. It’s in the dead of the Yellowstone winter that bison have to deal with the heaviest snowfall and trudge through the thickest of the wintry precipitation. And when that time comes, a lot of the bison within Yellowstone National Park look a lot like this tough-as-nails bison that the wildlife photographer captured battling the elements:
“The mighty ice bison.”
What a video.
I don’t know about you, but I’ll never get tired of watching videos of bison seemingly unbothered in the toughest of freezing weather conditions. While a lot of the other animals hibernate through the winter, or at the very least lay low, bison just keep going about their business and have learned to adapt to the freezing rain and snow.
Just as one of my favorite Grateful Dead songs sings, I’m sure this bison might prefer to go where the chilly winds don’t blow. Instead? It’s caught out in the cold rain and snow… good thing it’s practically built to handle horrible weather like that.
Might as well cue it up since I brought it up, eh?
“Cold Rain and Snow”
