{"id":19267,"date":"2013-10-14T06:55:49","date_gmt":"2013-10-14T12:55:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=19267"},"modified":"2013-10-14T06:55:49","modified_gmt":"2013-10-14T12:55:49","slug":"a-bisons-life-isnt-easy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2013\/10\/14\/a-bisons-life-isnt-easy\/","title":{"rendered":"A Bison’s Life Isn’t Easy"},"content":{"rendered":"

Life is far from a bowl of cherries\u00a0for the Bison of Antelope Island and recently I’ve seen more evidence of that fact.\u00a0 Some of it is caused by natural behavior, some by unfortunate circumstance and some by the thoughtlessness and ignorance\u00a0of humans.<\/p>\n

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\"bison<\/a><\/p>\n

Bison mating season extends into early fall and the actual mating process is often physically traumatic for the cows.\u00a0 When a 2,000 lb. bull mounts a cow roughly half his size his front hooves often tear into her hide and leave gaping wounds which may be slow to heal, partly\u00a0because of flies and birds picking at them.\u00a0 In\u00a0August and September (this photo was taken a month ago)\u00a0it’s not unusual to see several cows in a small herd with these open wounds, always in the same place on their backs.<\/p>\n

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\"bison<\/a><\/p>\n

Three days ago I ran into my old friend “Old Broken Leg” once again – his right rear leg has been broken for several years now but he continues to survive and even thrive.\u00a0 He can put no weight on that leg so his progress as he grazes the island is agonizingly slow and he can’t keep up with the herd so I\u00a0often see him off by\u00a0himself.\u00a0 One of my favorite\u00a0park rangers affectionately\u00a0calls him “Gimpy”.\u00a0 There’s an annual “bison roundup” on the island\u00a0where folks on horseback herd the bison for many miles to corrals where they can be checked by veterinarians, vaccinated and culled (some\u00a0are sold off to keep the population in check) but\u00a0of course Gimpy could never keep up so during the roundup they mercifully\u00a0leave him be.<\/p>\n

But I noticed something new on this resilient bull – a large healing wound on his back which I can’t help but speculate about.\u00a0 I’d guess that\u00a0this wound was caused by other bulls repeatedly\u00a0attempting to mount him during the breeding season.\u00a0 Circumstantial evidence leads me in that direction – the position of the wound, the\u00a0timing and the fact that this bull, because of his broken leg, would not be able to effectively evade such attempts.\u00a0 If that’s what’s occurring I’m surprised the other leg wasn’t injured or even broken during the process (this bull doesn’t even let the foot of his injured right leg touch the ground so it bears absolutely no weight).<\/p>\n

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\"hang<\/a><\/p>\n

But some of the difficulties faced by bison on the island are human caused.\u00a0 I’ve seen folks harass bison multiple times by illegally flying airplanes (even helicopters)\u00a0right over the top of them<\/strong><\/a>, driving too close to them, even walking up to within 6-10 feet of them<\/strong><\/a>.\u00a0 On the surface Bison seem lumbering and slow but when disturbed they can run away (or attack\/defend) at speeds over\u00a030 mph\u00a0and I’ve seen (and photographed)\u00a0several near disasters involving stupid people.\u00a0 Bison require “personal space” and when that space is invaded their reaction is unpredictable.\u00a0 They can also be disturbed by unusual\u00a0events and loud noises.<\/p>\n

I was about to leave the island\u00a0three days ago when this bozo in an engine-powered hang glider flew over the north end of the island so low that at times his feet seemed to be\u00a0dragging the\u00a0sagebrush and mullein (literally!).\u00a0 He was very close to me so I was\u00a0trying to maneuver my pickup and juggling 3 camera\/lens combinations to get the photos\u00a0I wanted before he\u00a0disappeared over the hill.\u00a0 There are bison just out of frame at the lower right and this guy flew within about 100′ of them (perhaps about 25′ off the ground).\u00a0 He not only disturbed the bison but caused several\u00a0Pronghorn to run off.<\/p>\n

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\"hang<\/a><\/p>\n

To give you an idea how close and low he was, this image was taken at 100mm and is almost full frame.\u00a0 I wanted to get him and the bison (again, just out of\u00a0frame at the lower right)\u00a0in the same shot so I changed cameras again…<\/p>\n

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\"hang<\/a><\/p>\n

and fired off a couple of quick shots just before he dipped below the hill but I hadn’t noticed that my zoom was at 17mm so this wide-angle view gives a distorted perspective.\u00a0 I drove around the hill to try to find this guy again, but couldn’t (temporarily)…<\/p>\n

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\"hang<\/a><\/p>\n

But lo and behold, as we left the causeway a half hour later\u00a0on our way home there he was – within 100 feet of the park entrance station, working with his gear (his face has been disguised to protect the “innocent”).<\/p>\n

When I talked to a park ranger a few days later about this guy the ranger said that they were aware of him and tried to\u00a0locate him that day but were unable to.\u00a0 Harassing wildlife on the island is illegal but interesting enough, bison aren’t “wildlife”.\u00a0 Since the bison\u00a0are actually owned by the park, legally they’re considered more like livestock than wildlife.<\/p>\n

However, that’s not the case\u00a0with Pronghorn…<\/p>\n

Ron<\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Life is far from a bowl of cherries for the Bison of Antelope Island and recently I’ve seen more evidence of that fact. Some of it is caused by natural behavior, some by unfortunate circumstance and some by the thoughtlessness and ignorance of humans.<\/p>\n

Continue reading<\/span><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":19275,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[3,334,347,16],"tags":[31,56,1690,61,1691,1016],"class_list":["post-19267","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-antelope-island","category-birds","category-bison-mammals","category-photography-ethics","tag-antelope-island-2","tag-bison","tag-bison-roundup","tag-buffalo","tag-hang-glider","tag-mating"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/bison-6708b-ron-dudley.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-50L","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19267","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19267"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19267\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19275"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19267"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19267"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19267"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}