There’s nothing like seeing a rumbling herd of bison.
If there was a place to go to see North America’s largest land animal, it would be Yellowstone. Somewhere around 5,000 bison call Yellowstone National Park home, and with most of them traveling in herds, encountering a large group on the move like this isn’t out of the ordinary. That being said, videos of herds moving along never get old, and to see them stampeding like this is something that would make a trip to the national park very much worth it.
Especially with this particular herd being made up of both adults and calves. Most of the time with animals (and with humans), there’s a process of growing up, where you have to be guided around and taken care of for a lot of your younger years. You have to spend time learning the ropes, how things work, and what to do and not to do. In this video out of Yellowstone, the plethora of calves are staying close and keeping up with their adult herd mates.
The setting of this clip is the Lamar Valley area of Yellowstone National Park. The area is actually known for its active bison population, and those that were there to see this stampede definitely got their money’s worth. This bison viewing feels cinematic, and the herd was so large that it truly felt like it was never-ending. There’s a mixture of bison walking, trotting and running, and in case you didn’t know, the 2,000 pound beasts can top out at around 35 miles per hour.
Especially when gravity is helping them out, like some of these bison sprinting downhill are seen experiencing.
This video taken by Julia Cook, a wildlife photographer, feels like a moving wallpaper or screensaver. It’s easy to forget that nature is always naturing (for a lack of a better term). While we humans all take care of our own lives and jobs (whatever they might look like), there are bison just living their lives out in the wild at Yellowstone National Park.
And there’s just something majestic about watching a bison herd run down from the peaks and into the Lamar Valley. The account that posted the video (Rawrszn) says that this footage was captured just after sunrise:
“After sunrise, a bison herd moves through Lamar Valley in Yellowstone National Park, home to the largest bison population on public land in the United States.
Yellowstone’s bison population is estimated at around 5,000 individuals, descended from a small remnant population that survived near-extinction in the 19th century.”
That right there is a living, breathing work of art, if you ask me.
If you dive into the comment section of this post (that can be a dangerous thing to do on social media), it’s full of people mesmerized by the bison herd. One Instagram user was very happy to stumble across this video of bison and their calves trotting through Yellowstone, and perfectly captured the magic of the video with just five words:
“Long may the bison roam.”
Amen to that.
The video was captured by wildlife photographer Julia Cook… give her a follow if you want some more killer work from Yellowstone:
