Ranch bison break out, roam Eastern Oregon

registerguard.com ^ | December 2, 2003 | AP

[dirtydanusa]

And you got mad when the neighbors dog poops in your yard, imagine a bison!!!

[Cowgirl]

I live outside Delta Junction, Alaska where the buffalo
roam free. They also have domestic herds for the Buffalo
Diner here in town. On our trip through Canada, one guide stopped at our camp and said we'd better move out with our
horse and mule as the buffalo herd within a half mile had two rank bulls that had killed his mule. Needless to say, we moved on down the road where we spotted several bear on the side of the road as we stopped to water our horses.
When you live in Alaska you have a numerous encounters
with bear, buffalo and moose. It is definitely wild country up here.

[bicycle thug]

"Don't hit it with a car, you'll just make it angry... "

Imagine how the insurance company would look at a claim like that; 'car flattened in bison stampede.' The good thing of course would be there would not likely be any bison, 'act of God' clauses to worry about.

[Timocrat]

Our ranch was in the Texas Hill Country and we ran the buffalo with some longhorns we had (cows not teasips). Got some interesting Beefalos out of the experiment.

[Danette]

This reminds about my uncle who owns a 1200 acre farm in N.D.. His 6 buffalo got out of the pasture and were roaming the dirt roads. He tracked them down and shot them dead on the spot. He said once they get out, they never stay in a pasture again and they had to be put down.

He called the locker plant and all the meat was spoken for before the last buffalo could be delivered for processing.

[Carry_Okie]

The shaggy beasts are indigenous to the state but are now classified as domestic livestock, not wildlife, under animal and health statutes that govern their importation into Oregon. But that hasn't kept them confined to fenced pastures.

False.

Neither wolves nor bison can be considered "indigenous" from the evolutionary perspective. Bison were introduced by "native" Americans when they came here over the Arctic land bridge. Pollen and mud strata from the period indicate that the animals did not have enough forage in the Arctic to have willingly crossed the Bering bridge but had to have been driven. Wolves arrived about the same time apparently following the herds.

[skinkinthegrass]

"taste like chicken" humor, sounds great...looks good, too. :))

[skinkinthegrass]

The last time they escaped was at the bison-tennial

Ahem...BAD... :)

[skinkinthegrass]

THUMP!....I take it, the train won...Pulled Bison, I wonder...How that would taste?

[ChefKeith]

It's what's For DINNER!!!!!!

[skinkinthegrass]

...for the native Americans who hunted the things with a bow and arrow from horseback.

The natives, ran the Bison off cliffs and overhangs...didn't they?

[gitmo]

The real problems arise when they are in rut.

[76834]

The train always wins in a situation like that.
Friend told me that he felt a substantial bump, a lot more than just hitting an automoblle, he's hit a few of those too.
They finally got the train stopped and the conductor went back to see what happened and found some pretty bad stuff.
Blood and guts everywhere, wasnt enough to try to save.

[Beck_isright]

It's a terrifying thought that they are allowed to roam freely like this one does.

[Beck_isright]

This sounds like a job for:

[Timocrat]

The natives, ran the Bison off cliffs and overhangs...didn't they?

Yes before the Spanish kindly provided some horses. Its thought that the European bison were hunted in the same way before horses became widely used.

[76834]

Agree, but I am thinking about Hillary.
If the train had hit her it would have derailed.

[Stonewall Jackson]

But can you imagine one a them big summabitches getting hit by a car on the interstate ?

I once saw a car that had a close encounter with an elk. It was not a pretty sight. Now if a five hundred pound elk can take out a car, I don't even want to think about what a three thousand pound buffalo can do.

Come to think of it, I recall several stories from the Old West where buffalo attacked and destroyed entire trains. They even managed to knock some of the engines (which weigh in the neighborhood of sixty to seventy tons) completely off the tracks.

[76834]

They run em a LOT bigger now. Average locomotive will go at least 400,000 pounds and most trains have several of em.
Friend said that he wasnt really worried but it did rattle the windows for a bit.