A bull bison had his own version of road rage at Yellowstone National Park last week.
A seasonal mechanic driving through the park stopped his pickup truck at 2:45 a.m. MT on Oct. 8 when he noticed the animal standing in the middle of the road near Mud Volcano, the Cowboy State Daily reported.
Kyle Weber, who was returning home after working for Yellowstone Park Service Stations, braked and stopped the pickup to avoid hitting the bison, but after sizing up the situation, the animal decided to hit the truck. The animal won the battle, damaging the hood of Weber’s Ford Ranger.
“I was going through the trees, coming around the corner, and I saw a bison on the road,” Weber told the newspaper. “I slammed on my brakes and stopped and was just sitting there watching and waiting for him to continue walking.”
The bison seemed indifferent at first before deciding to charge the pickup. He smashed his head into the left side of the truck and dented truck’s bumper and hood and broke the side marker light, the Cowboy State Daily reported.
“I definitely got jolted in that thing,” Weber told the newspaper. “I knew they hit hard, but that was pretty rough. It pushed my truck back at least a foot and a half.”
Video showed the bison standing silently in the road while the truck’s lights shone on him. He seemed unperturbed but suddenly charged at the pickup.
Stephen Borgmier, Weber’s co-worker, said encountering bison at night is not unusual.
“My wife and I were driving out of Fishing Bridge about three weeks ago in the dark,” Borgmier told the Cowboy State Daily. “A bison came up on the road and stopped, then two or three more came right up in front of us.”
Borgmier said the bison that charged Weber’s truck “seemed blinded by the headlights.”
“I don’t know, but maybe the headlights are what aggravated the bison into charging,” he told the newspaper.
After the bison banged into the pickup, Weber drove away, only to encounter the animals farther ahead.
“Unfortunately, he went the same direction I was going,” he told the Cowboy State Daily. said. “I wanted to make sure I followed directly behind him as far back as I could, where I could still see him with my headlights.”
Weber pulled away when the bison walked off the road.
He later told the newspaper that he tried to consider how he could have avoided the encounter, but was stumped.
“They usually continue on their way,” Weber said. “I could have backed up, maybe backed off him a bit, but I didn’t know if moving would agitate him. He looked agitated when I pulled up, so I thought sitting still was my best option. And it might have been. Who knows?
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