Bison Are On the Run After 125 Escape a Nebraska Feedlot

[sl8]

From https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/29/us/bison-escape-nebraska.html

Bison Are On the Run After 125 Escape a Nebraska Feedlot

So many people have been chasing the 50 stragglers that the animals got spooked and split off into singles and pairs, complicating efforts to catch them, a sheriff said.

By Bryan Pietsch and Allyson Waller
Aug. 29, 2020

After more than 100 bison escaped from a feedlot in southern Nebraska, local residents hopped into pickup trucks and onto horses and four-wheelers to try to catch the fleeing animals.

“We had everything,” Gene Samuelson, the Phelps County sheriff, said of the effort to wrangle the escapees that broke through a fence and fled Valley View Feeders in Overton, Neb., about 150 miles west of Lincoln, Neb., Tuesday night or early Wednesday morning.

The bison were at the feedlot to be “fattened up” before being sent to slaughter, the sheriff said. He said the herd probably got spooked by something and stampeded.

[...]

[AllaN01Bear]

1. whee freedom.:)

[TlalocW]

2. And Weird Al is making a call

To Paul McCartney right now.

TlalocW

[sl8]

7. LOL. Good idea - I think you should email it to Weird Al. n/t

[BusyBeingBest]

3. Need to have special super-duty fences to contain them.

Part of me says let them run free across the plains the way nature intended them. Part of me says I wouldn't want to run into one at night on a highway (having almost done that to a cow in New Mexico).

[2naSalit]

5. They are nearly invisible in headlights...

That's one big danger with them on roadways, plus, they won't just move off the road either. Unlike deer, their fur doesn't reflect light so you can't see them until you've hit them most often. I have had many close calls and what I learned from the locals was, just avoid driving at night. We had bears and elk too, none of which are easy to see at night. And it's a terrible scene when one does get hit. Usually they are injured seriously but not die right away and that is a horrible event.

[Loki Liesmith]

4. Well

[2naSalit]

6. Hard to keep them contained.

And just getting them into an enclosure in a group is job. They should never be contained for any reason, they are wildlife.