You’d never think a bison could sneak up on someone in Yellowstone National Park. Nevertheless, that’s exactly what Kristi Wilt and her family captured on video during a visit.
An angler heading toward the Lamar River was blissfully unaware of the danger behind him until his waiting wife honked their car horn. Once he realized how close he was to a bull bison, he had moments to make the decisions that, if wrong, could have resulted in serious injury.
“We were deciding whether or not to honk because we didn't want the bison to go crazy,” Wilt told Cowboy State Daily. “They’re like sleeping giants, and we didn't want to awaken that one.”
Bison Behind You
Wilt and her family were enjoying a trip to Yellowstone they had spent four years planning and anticipating.
“My son graduated from high school, and we wanted to do something fun,” she said.
Because they wanted to see wildlife, the family drove to the Lamar Valley on the evening of July 19. They saw plenty of bears and bison before pulling over at a spot overlooking the Lamar River.
That’s when they noticed the angler standing in the shallows. They also noticed the massive bull bison walking toward the stream.
“I saw the bison above him, and I'm like, ‘Oh my gosh, he's awfully close to him,’ and I was wondering if he even knew the bison was behind him,” she said.
At that moment, neither the bison nor the angler appeared to notice each other. They both kept walking along their separate paths along the stream.
“I was surprised that he wasn't responding to the bison walking up to him,” she said. “He was not aware at all.”
Wilt and her family had a stressful decision: do they try to alert the angler, or stay quiet and let the two pass each other, hopefully without incident?
“We didn’t want to honk or attract any attention from the bison,” she said.
Two Ships In The Sea
The Wilt family didn’t need to decide after hearing a honk from the vehicle behind them. Inside was the fisherman’s wife, who managed to get her husband’s attention.
Once he realized there was a bison on his six, the angler did the best he could do under the circumstances.
“He waved his hand up, acknowledging that he knew the bison was there,” Wilt said. “He turned over, walked across the rocks, and slowly turned his eyes so that he could slightly see the bison.”
Wilt was struck by how calm the angler acted. If he was panicked or frightened, he didn’t express it in his slow, controlled movement.
“He didn’t move in an erratic way that would let the bison know he was there,” she said. “He waited until the bison was out of his view, then he was waving his arms up and down, like ‘Thank you for letting me know.’ We were all cheering for him.”
If the bison was aware of the angler, he didn’t seem to care. He crossed the river and walked right past Wilt’s vehicle.
“He came up to our vehicles,” she said. “It sure was scary.”
In the end, no one was injured. Wilt said the bison and the angler moved along “like two ships passing in the sea.”
Like A Boss
Wilt was well aware of the July 10 incident where a bull bison tossed Carl McDaniel, 65, during an unprovoked attack at Yellowstone’s Bridge Bay Campground. McDaniel was hospitalized with a femur broken in four places.
While that possibility was on her mind as this incident unfolded, she didn’t need to be reminded of how powerful and dangerous bison can be.
“My family also used to live on Catalina Island where there's bison,” she said. “My mom and my aunt got stuck on tennis courts because bison were near them.”
Santa Catalina Island, off the coast of Los Angeles, California, has been home to a herd of bison since the 1920s. They were transported there for a film and then left to roam freely, reaching a peak population of 600 individuals.
That’s why Wilt and her husband were so hesitant to honk their horn to get the angler's attention.
“We know how dangerous they are, and you don't want to cause any alarm,” she said.
Wilt was impressed by how well the angler handled himself. In a moment when he realized a bison was behind him, he kept and acted calm until the bison went about its business and he was safe.
“I've never seen someone handle such a tumultuous situation so well,” she said. “He took that like a boss.”
Meanwhile, the incident has become an odd highlight of the Wilt family’s long-awaited trip to Yellowstone.
“We’re already calling it our Bison Summer,” she said.
Andrew Rossi can be reached at arossi@cowboystatedaily.com.
