The Old West

Blow this picture up and you'll see a scene straight out of the Old West. Down on the Yellowstone River are hundreds of bison (many more than in this picture), grazing tranquilly by the water, with no civilization in sight. There are many hundreds of bison in Yellowstone...I saw probably 500 in two days so I reckon there are most likely at least a thousand in the park. The only sign of human activity in this area is not pictured...massive traffic jams caused partly by bison on or next to the road and mostly by tourons who stop their vehicles in the middle of the highway to gawk at them. Other tourons get out of their cars to photograph the bison at close range and are then injured by the critters, who tend to be curmudgeonly.

This is about as close as I want to get to a bison. The pic is taken with a zoom feature, and there's a stream between me and the critter. Given those features, he stays mellow.