A majestic bull elk and his harem of 20+ stole the show at the buffalo roundup.  They got swept up with the Bison and disrupted the whole process.

A single rider appeared on the far ridge.  Before long bison appeared; first in small groups then as a mass of brown dots pouring over the hilltop across the prairie.  In a closer valley another stream of bison came into view.  We had anticipated a thundering herd it was more like a meandering bunch.  Before long it was clear why.  The bull elk appeared on the ridge standing tall and proud wonderfully outlined against the sky.  He stood there just taking in all that was happening in front of him: thousands of people and 50 or so riders, probably 10 pickup trucks, all trying to direct this huge mass of bison.  Then the cows and young elk appeared but they didn’t stop to consider the happenings.  They kept running and headed right down the valley that split the bison herd.  They encountered fences but still ran.  They were chased up over the far ridge by a pickup truck, they ran.  But, they circled back right into the center of the herd again.  All the wranglers (and all the spectators) could do was wait until the elk herd eventually raced back the valley and out if sight.

We turned our attention back to the bison who by now had settled into munching on grass and milling about in every direction.  There were a few false starts but ultimately the riders won and the bison were pushed on into the corrals.  It was not as dramatic as I had envisioned with all the stops and starts but it was still a great experience.

They day had warmed a bit from the 40s at 6AM so we wandered over to the holding corrals.  We enjoyed BBQ buffalo and some cowboy beans for lunch and stayed to watch them handle a few bison; health checkup, shots, ear tags and brands for the new ones, and the ultimate determination, “herd” or “lot number xxx”.  There is an auction in November when they will sell off animals of every age group to maintain the herd size the park can support.    The bison get some rather rough treatment and I am a bit uneasy about the eventual plight of those with a “lot number” sticker but the event is exciting to watch and it is necessary they manage herd size somehow.  This approach at least gets more animals out into more herds and encourages the preservation of these magnificent creatures.