A Yellowstone bull bison with a gigantic abscess on its right rear quarter probably isn’t suffering much pain and will likely survive, one of the county’s top bison ranchers says.
But the recovery process is going to be good, said Ken Klemm, past president and a lifelong member of the National Bison Association.
After seeing a photo of the bison, taken early Wednesday in Yellowstone National Park’s Lamar Valley, Klemm said a gushing rupture of the abscess is imminent.
“It looks like a 5-gallon bucketful of stuff will come out of that one,” Klemm, who has managed some of the world’s largest bison ranches, told Cowboy State Daily.
The abscess probably formed around a wound, he said.
The bison rut, or mating season, is on in Yellowstone. The bull might have suffered a puncture during a fight with another bull, Klemm said.
‘This Is A Little Intimidating’
Lauri Foster lives just outside of New York City and loves coming to Wyoming to visit Yellowstone and Grand Teton national parks.
Early Wednesday, she was on a wildlife-viewing drive through the Lamar Valley when she spotted the bull sporting a huge, bulbous mass near its backside.
Foster works with horses and is familiar with injuries to large animals, so she knew what she saw on the bison must be something serious.
“I thought it had to be a hematoma or an abscess,” she told Cowboy State Daily.
Foster couldn’t see any visible cuts or sores that might indicate exactly where it was wounded, she said.
To keep safe, Foster stayed in her vehicle to photograph that bull and other bison.
The bulls were raising a ruckus as they competed for mating rights.
“They were headbutting each other and chasing each other down,” Foster said.
The bull with the abscess was taking a break, though she surmised he had probably been recently wounded in a fight.
She added that despite how hideous that abscess looked, the bull didn’t seem sick or weak.
“He was walking along normally,” she said.
The rut has made bull bison extra agitated lately. In the most dramatic incident, a bison flipped and seriously injured Washington state resident Carl Isom-McDaniel, 65, in July.
Foster said at one point the bull walked up the middle of the road and stopped directly in front of her vehicle, giving her the stink-eye.
“I was thinking, ‘this is a little intimidating,’” she said.
“They’re Worse Than Elk”
Bull elk are known for getting into epic battles once their rut starts, usually in September.
Bison take it to another level, Klemm said.
“They’re worse than elk. If the loser doesn’t get away, the other bull will kill him,” he said.
The National Park Service has a general policy of letting nature take its course with animals’ injuries.
Klemm said the bull with the super-sized abscess has a good chance of making it.
“The infection is just raging in there,” he said. "The immune system is keeping that bison from dying, just from walking around with that much infectious material in its body.
“I suspect it will burst fairly soon and he’ll get over it. Bison have unbelievably good immune systems for things like this.”
Mark Heinz can be reached at mark@cowboystatedaily.com.
