A SINGLE SEMI-TRUCK KILLED 13 BISON NEAR YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK
I hate it when I see dead animals on the roadside. Usually, I see dead deer, raccoons, the occasional flat squirrel or chipmunk, maybe even the occasional coyote or fox. One time I saw a stunned and injured hawk that wasn’t going to last long. But no matter what the animal is that fell victim to our mostly gas-powered network is, it breaks my heart just a little as I continue on. But sometimes people hit much larger animals, which increases the danger for the driver and passengers. And that’s what we have here, though the incident is rather staggering, considering a single semi-truck managed to kill 13 bison (as in buffalo!) near Yellowstone Park.
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HOW COULD A SINGLE SEMI-TRUCK MANAGE TO KILL SO MANY LARGE ANIMALS NEAR YELLOWSTONE?
And yes, I did say 13 bison. And a semi-truck, not an 18-wheeler or a bulldozer geared for drag racing. This happened last Wednesday, and managed to mostly stay under the news radar even though it’s so unusual. That’s likely because we humans were so engrossed with the weather storm that disrupted so much holiday travel and knocked out power for millions of Americans. But this news is devastating if you love animals at all, especially a national icon like Bison. And 13 of them? It seems almost impossible that this could happen, and with only a single semi-truck as the mass road killer.
Related:
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SEMI-TRUCK DIDN’T KILL ALL THE BISON ON IMPACT; SOME WERE PUT DOWN ON TH SCENE
Not all of the bison were killed by impact; some needed to be euthanized as their injuries were so severe. The accident happened on Highway 191, near mile marker 4. Bison in the area tend to frequent the roadway there between town and the Highway 287 junction, and can often be found “near paved roadways and snowmobile trails due to these areas being easier for them to travel,” during winter months. This year, this has proved deadly, marking one of the worst losses of local wildlife in a single incident ever. Local authorities say that there is often road kills in the area, due to the abundance of local wildlife.
