Motorcycle riding through Custer State Park … Buffalo stampede toward motorcycle riders.
One of the real benefits of motorcycle riding is that you’re out there right in the middle of nature without having the cage in feel of a car.
Motorcycle Riders and Buffalos
This video of motorcyclist encountering Buffalo is a real example of being right in the middle of nature with nothing between you and the couple thousand pounds of wild animal. I’m sure these motorcyclist will be talking about this encounter for the rest of their days.
The American bison (Bison bison), also commonly known as the American buffalo, is a North American species of bison that once roamed the grasslands of North America in massive herds. They became nearly extinct by a combination of commercial hunting and slaughter in the 19th century and introduction of bovine diseases from domestic cattle, and have made a recent resurgence largely restricted to a few national parks and reserves. Their historical range roughly comprised a triangle between the Great Bear Lake in Canada’s far northwest, south to the Mexican states of Durango and Nuevo León, and east to the Atlantic Seaboard of the United States (nearly to the Atlantic tidewater in some areas) from New York to Georgia and per some sources down to Florida. Bison were seen in North Carolina near Buffalo Ford on the Catawba River as late as 1750.
Despite being the closest relatives of domestic cattle native to North America, bison were never domesticated by Native Americans. Later attempts of domestication by Europeans prior to the 20th century met with limited success. Bison were described as having a “wild and ungovernable temper”;they can jump close to 6 ft (1.8 m) vertically, and run 35-40 mph (56–64 km/h) when agitated. This agility and speed, combined with their great size and weight, makes bison herds difficult to confine, as they can easily escape or destroy most fencing systems, including most razor wire.
About 500,000 bison currently exist on private lands and around 30,000 on public lands which includes environmental and government preserves. According to the IUCN, roughly 15,000 bison are considered wild, free-range bison not primarily confined by fencing.
This video of motorcyclist encountering Buffalo is a real example of being right in the middle of nature with nothing between you and the couple thousand pounds of wild animal. I’m sure these motorcyclist will be talking about this encounter for the rest of their days.
