You mess with the calf, you get the herd.
It’s estimated that around 4,500 bison roam around Yellowstone National Park. Considering there’s only 90 to 120 wolves in the same area, you’d imagine that the bison have the upper hand. But that doesn’t mean that wolf packs don’t cause trouble for bison herds from time to time.
Wolves will generally do their best to narrow down one bison out of the pack. They usually go for one of the slowest, one that’s injured, or in this case, one that’s the youngest. With animals, as with humans, the younger years consist of a long period of growing up where you have to be guided around and taken care of. You have to spend time learning the ropes, how things work, and what to do and not to do.
Parents of animals in the wild usually raise their young until they are able to survive on their own. Then they let them go out into the world and figure things out for themselves. The parenting process for bison generally lasts about six months, and it’s at that point that a bison mother will start to wean off her young and move them to grazing (female calves can sometimes take a little bit longer to become independent).
It doesn’t take a wildlife expert to tell you that bison calves are often at the highest risk of death when you break down a herd of bison. Whether it be the cruel winters, the relentless pursuit of predators, or just normal travel, a young bison faces many tests before it makes it to adulthood… if it does at all. There’s always a fine line between life and death out in the wild, and this calf was only a few hours old when it figured that out.
Wildlife photographers were set up in Yellowstone recently when they witnessed a wolf pack honing in on a mother bison and her calf, which was apparently only a couple of hours old when this video was taken. The wolves had the mother bison on her heels, but she wasn’t going to let them take her calf without a fight. She stomped and charged with all of her might while the bison calf stayed close, and even that was barely enough to keep it safe.
It was only when the nearby herd came rushing down the terrain that the wolves gave up their pursuit of the young one. Bison are famous for practicing strength in numbers, and that was on full display here. That being said, it was quite the close call for the calf. I’d say the rest of the bison came just in the nick of time, and it was all captured on video by Grant Johnson, who described the encounter like this:
“We witnessed an epic battle between wolves and bison today, where for more than an hour, three wolves tried to take advantage of a bison calf that was merely hours old. The persistence of hungry wolves pitted against the tenacity and maternal instincts of a mother bison.”
