Cowboys and cowgirls stage rare bison roundup in South Dakota
South Dakota cowboys and cowgirls rounded up a herd of more than 1,500 bison on Friday 29 September as part of an annual effort to maintain the health of the species, which has rebounded from near-extinction.
Visitors from across the world cheered from behind wire fencing as whooping horseback riders chased the thundering, woolly giants across hills and grasslands in Custer State Park.
Bison and their calves stopped occasionally to graze on blond grass and roll on the ground, their sharp hooves stirring up dust clouds.
Each year Custer State Park holds one of the nation’s few bison roundups to check the health of the bovines and vaccinate calves.
Visitors from across the world cheered from behind wire fencing as whooping horseback riders chased the thundering, woolly giants across hills and grasslands in Custer State Park.
Bison and their calves stopped occasionally to graze on blond grass and roll on the ground, their sharp hooves stirring up dust clouds.
Each year Custer State Park holds one of the nation’s few bison roundups to check the health of the bovines and vaccinate calves.
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00 [MUSIC]
00:16 Today is just that fun event that we've turned this into to allow the public to come and
00:21 see this spectacular aspect of it.
00:24 How many times can you get this close to a buffalo herd and you hear the grunts and the
00:28 moans and the calves coming and running alongside mamas.
00:31 It's just a spectacular thing to see and experience and why do we want to keep it to ourselves.
00:36 So that's why we've made this into such a great event.
00:39 We basically bring all the animals in and check their overall health.
00:42 We vaccinate the calves, brand the calves, and then we figure out what are we going to
00:46 keep over winter and what are we going to sell at the auction coming up in November.
00:51 So there's a process to the madness that we go through.
00:54 These amazing crowds, of course we don't know what the final numbers are, but from my
00:58 perspective someone who's been doing this roundup for about 20 years, I can say I'm
01:03 not going to be surprised if we hear that it's a record crowd today.
01:07 And we're seeing visitors from all over the country.
01:10 Not only has this event turned from a domestic event, it is a truly global event drawing
01:15 people from all over the globe.
01:16 [Music]