Yellowstone National Park is one of the few places in North America where you can see bears, bison and other wild animals thriving in their natural habitat. It’s also a spot where any and all of those animals can sneak up on you and ruin a photo op.
Wapiti resident Nancy Wiley Pichette was taking pictures in Yellowstone on Sept. 17 when she and bout 40 other photographers and spectators were sent scrambling. A bison strode up the steep hill and decided to crash their photo party.
“It happened really quickly,” Pichette said. “We usually see bison coming because they're so large, but this one was definitely a came-out-of-nowhere situation.”
Bear’s Bounty
Pichette was set up to watch a large male grizzly devour a bull elk it had dragged out of a muddy pond in an incredible exhibition of strength. The elk had been killed by the National Park Service, and several grizzlies battled each other over the carcass.
“The rangers shot the elk to put it out of its misery, and the grizzly went in, dragged it out of the pond, and started eating on the carcass,” Pichette said.
Getting a good glimpse of a grizzly on a carcass is a gold mine for tourists and photographers. Pichette was one of nearly two dozen people set up along the road overlooking the site where the grizzly was gorging itself.
That’s when the bison butted in.
We were all lined up taking pictures, chatting, and waiting for something to happen,” Pichette said. “Then, all of a sudden, one of the rangers told us a bison was coming up the hill, right in front of us.”
Bison Butts In
Bison are everywhere in Yellowstone, but they’re usually easy enough to spot and avoid. That doesn’t stop people from getting too close, but it’s typically hard to honestly argue that a 1,800-pound animal “snuck up on you.”
In this instance, nobody was expecting a bison. They were focused on the grizzly and the carcass, but Pichette said the spot where they were standing didn’t seem very bison-friendly.
“Nobody saw him at first,” she said. “I wouldn’t have thought a bison would walk up to where we were, as it was a very steep embankment, but it just popped up in front of us.”
Thousands of dollars’ worth of cameras, tripods, and spotting scopes were hastily abandoned to give the bison a wide berth. The bison seemed mildly curious about the abundance of equipment and was clearly undeterred by the number of people on its chosen path.
Instead, it found an opening and deftly moved between the forest of tripods to continue on its way. Pichette left her camera behind but was lucky enough to have a second camera in her vehicle.
“That’s where I took the pictures,” she said. “He crested the hill, walked past everything, crossed the road, and kept going.”
Bow Before The Bison
Wolves and grizzlies might be Yellowstone’s top predators, but there’s no debate which animal demands the most respect in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem. Bison seem placid, but they cause more visitor injuries than any other animal in Yellowstone National Park.
Visitors are asked to maintain a distance of at least 25 yards between themselves and all bison. Ignoring that distance is usually how human-bison incidents often occur, which can result in serious injuries and, at least twice in Yellowstone’s history, death.
However, sometimes there’s nothing one can do when a bison decides to close the distance. Tourists visiting the Lamar Valley in February learned that the hard way, after a stampeding bison turned and ran toward a crowd watching a winter wolf hunt.
“Instead of running the opposite way, the bison ran towards everybody watching them,” said wildlife photographer Jeff Vanuga in February 2025. “They threaded their way through a few vehicles, snowmobiles, and at least 50 people watching everything that morning.”
Fortunately, nobody was injured. It could have gone much differently, resulting in multiple injuries as the thousand-pound animal slammed into or knocked people over at full speed.
“If that last bison decided to go straight, it would’ve gone quite differently,” Vanuga said. “Something worse could have happened, but I think everyone handled it properly.”
Pichette said the bison that broke up the bear viewing party seemed to be unperturbed by the crowd. They just happened to be on the bison’s predetermined path, and everyone in the vicinity hustled away to ensure their safety as it strolled through
“It was a good thing that the ranger saw it ahead of time and yelled to let everyone know a bison was coming,” she said. “Everybody listened and ran back and got back to the vehicles or at least got out of its way.”
Andrew Rossi can be reached at arossi@cowboystatedaily.com.
