The dangers of confronting animals in the wild have been made evident in numerous encounters caught on video. A woman at a South Dakota park fell prey to that risk this week when a bison charged her as she attempted to capture footage of a large herd.
The Wednesday incident at Custer State Park in Custer, South Dakota, happened as the woman and a group of motorcyclists were stopped near the herd on a rural road. According to video collected by several media outlets, the woman broke away from the group to get an up-close look at a bison mother and her calf.
That’s when the bison attacked suddenly, throwing the woman out of her jeans, the footage showed. The park’s superintendent, Matt Snyder, told News Channel 1 that the victim, a 54-year-old woman from Iowa, was transported to a hospital via life flight. Her condition was not known.
A visitor at the park, Jo Reed, caught the entire encounter on video. She said in a Facebook post Thursday that the South Dakota summer heat may have agitated the herd, which appeared “frisky” and “punchy” and perhaps attempting to mate as the animals besieged the roadway. Reed said she noticed the mother and the calf as well, but she chose to take a long-shot photo from her Jeep.
This video contains some strong language.
“Initially one woman got off her bike and approached the herd and then more followed. It was a tense moment, because John and I just knew they weren’t respecting these massive beautiful creatures space,” Reed described in her Facebook post...
“PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE FEEL FREE TO share this, so people understand they’re about to die when they confront an animal this powerful. Thankfully the ranger did not need to tranquilize the bison. The sound you hear is a bull whip. The woman’s pants were eventually thrown off and he picked them up.”
In June, a 72-year-old woman was gored by a bison several times at Yellowstone Park while trying to take photos of the animal, according to several reports.
She “approached within 10 feet of a bison multiple times to take its photo,” said Yellowstone’s Senior Bison Biologist Chris Geremia in the statement. “The series of events that led to the goring suggest the bison was threatened by being repeatedly approached to within 10 feet.”
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