Two Bison Square Off In The Middle Of Icy Road At Yellowstone National Park

So much for this being the season to be merry.

These bison evidently didn’t get the memo about “Christmas spirit.” Either that, or they let the holiday pass and then immediately got back to being a couple of “Scrooges.” With all of the wintry weather in Yellowstone National Park, you’d think that would be their biggest worry.

However, it looks like these two beasts still had the time and the energy to lock horns in the middle of this icy road.

In case you didn’t know, as bison head into the winter season, their coat thickens up to counter the frigid temperatures and blankets of snow that often fall in their North Americans habitats. Those wooly coats play an intricate role in keeping them warm through the winter, and allegedly create such a layer of insulation that snow that lands on their coat will not melt from the heat the bison’s skin gives off.

Bison pair their thickening coats (and skin) with their ability to derive sufficient nutrients from very small amounts of food, which is usually vegetation that peeks through the snow. All of these qualities allow for bison to survive the toughest of winter conditions, and those conditions were shown in the breathtaking footage below out of Yellowstone National Park.

And hey, the phrase “tough conditions” can even include the occasional standoff with another, big ol’ bison.

Fully grown male bison stand at 6 feet tall (their probably actually 5’11 and are just rounding up) and can weigh around 2,000 pounds at their heaviest, which if you don’t know, is a full ton. So when these one-ton beasts go at one another, it is truly a heavy-weight match up. And catching two going at each other is more likely to happen during mating season, while male bison want to show their female counterparts that they are “tough enough” and worthy to be a romantic partner.

There’s no telling what kind of beef these two bison had with one another, but they were both bringing the aggression and the power in this fierce battle that was caught on camera by Good Bull Guided. The two massive bison were locked into a horn-swinging feud, and it certainly seemed like one of the bison was just trying to move things along while the other stood strong in the middle of the road.

Neither were able to really dig their hooves in because of the snow and ice that had packed on the asphalt.

It was a short-lived battle, but it was rather scenic. One bison fought for the right to get across to the other side of the roadway, and the other had enough energy to hold it up… even if it was just for a couple of seconds. As snow poured down, the massive beasts momentarily showed off their power (and held up traffic) before letting bygones be bygones and moving on with their day.

Sometimes you’ve got to let a little bit of that pent-up winter energy out, and it certainly looked like these two bison released some tension fighting on a road that looked more like an ice rink.

Check it out:

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