When it’s rutting season, it’s best to not get between two bison.
In case you didn’t know, we have reached the part of the calendar that’s known as the “bison rut.” Also called bison mating season, the active months for male and female bison to do their thing spans from July all the way through September. It’s during this time that bison, especially males, are generally more aggressive than they normally would be.
That’s because these behemoths are competing for mating rights and territories over the span of a couple of months. The bulls are doing all they can to display their dominance and show off in front of the female bison (called cows), so it’s not a smart decision to try to mess with really any bison during the rut season.
Actually, it’s just a smart call to never mess with a bison during any time of the year… I don’t think people understand just how big of beasts they are.
Fully grown male bison stand at 6 feet tall (their probably actually 5’11 and are just rounding up) and can weigh around 2,000 pounds at their heaviest, which if you don’t know, is a full ton. So when these one-ton beasts go at one another, it is truly a heavy-weight match up.
And catching two going at each other is more likely to happen during mating season, while male bison want to show their female counterparts that they are “tough enough” and worthy to be a romantic partner. This wildlife photographer with Good Bull Guided (a wildlife photography tour typically based in the Rocky Mountain National Park area) had a front row seat to two bison laying it all on the line during the rut.
While the rest of the herd grazed about, these two behemoths were locked in an all-out battle. The two animals stirred up plenty of dust as they clashed their horns together and played a wild game of tug-of-war (guess you could call it push-of-war). Neither of the two beasts were letting up, and both bison were showcasing all of the strength and power they could muster.
I hope there were some cows around to see it.
It’s hard to say if one or the other was the winner of the face-off. Both individual bison had their moments in the scuffle, with the most impressive highlight being a short burst where one put the other back on its heels for a good 10 yards or so. But in the grand scheme of things, it was actually a rather even fight.
The real winner? All of us who get to sit back and watch this from afar. Thanks to the work of those at Good Bull Guided, we don’t have to move a muscle and get to see two of North America’s largest land mammals give it their all in a clash for supremacy. Considering the rut season just started, and this battle absolutely brought it, I’ll be interested to see what a fight later down the road in late August or September will look like.
Until a bigger and better one comes along, we’ll keep this one on repeat:
“The bison rut is is full of some serious action!”
