A YouTube video showing “Yellowstone Buffalo Running for Their Lives” has over 1 million page views and has triggered anxious inquiries to Yellowstone National Park officials. But park officials say the video is much ado about nothing, and the animals are not fleeing for their lives to avoid a supervolcano eruption.
In fact, park officials note that the buffalo, shown in the video running down a paved road, are actually running further into the park, not fleeing it. Park officials hoping to combat the rumors to avoid panic.
Yellowstone Public Affairs chief Al Nash says the video of bison “fleeing” the park shows normal migration patterns. The animals move around because it is winter, and that they frequently move out of the park this time of year to lower elevation where there may be more to eat. They go to where they remember finding food before.
Nash says that many of Yellowstone’s 4,600 bison are out of the park right now, but when the snow melts and things start to get green they will come right back, just as they do every year. He says the bison frequently take the paved roads, and they get frisky on spring days and run around. It’s a normal occurrence.
The rumors of a massive animal exodus started after a March 30, 4.8 magnitude earthquake, with fears that the temblor indicated increasing seismic activity, which could trigger the eruption of a supervolcano. Nash says the large earthquakes experienced in recent weeks are not beyond normal seismic activity. The park gets 1,000 to 3,000 earthquakes yearly, and they are not related to the supervolcano.
Yes, there is a massive supervolcano under Yellowstone Park. The Yellowstone Caldera is what causes the geysers, mud pots and hot springs that people come to see. And if it did erupt it would be a big problem, potentially covering half of North America in ash.
Two previous supervolcano eruptions, 640,000 years ago and 2 million years ago caused massive damage to the earth, and the eruption 2 million year ago was thought to have killed off many species. But the US Geological Survey agrees that the park gets many earthquakes each year, and there are currently no changes in atmospheric helium levels that would indicate that an eruption is due any time soon.
Many people believe myths that say that animals can sense upcoming earthquakes. And although animals may feel an earthquake earlier than humans and start to react, they do not get some kind of mystical advance notice. Also, if animals did have an early warning sense they would not necessarily know which way to run and what to do. Park authorities say they definitely do not know something we do not about the Yellowstone supervolcano.
Yellowstone says the YouTube video was actually taken before March 30 quake, and that the buffalo are actually fleeing TOWARD the center of the Caldera. Park authorities say that if people really want to know about the geology in Yellowstone that they should go to the official website.
By Beth A. Balen
Sources:
The Christian Science Monitor
The Independent
AmericanLiveWire
futuretense
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7 Responses
“Many people believe myths that say that animals can sense upcoming earthquakes. And although animals may feel an earthquake earlier than humans and start to react, they do not get some kind of mystical advance notice.”
I cannot believe that you (the author) wrote what I have put in quotes, above.
Hello? Yes, animals generally do tend to sense natural disasters before humans. Remember all the dogs and elephants running away from the beach just before the Tusami?
You wrote that many people think that animals get some kind of “mystical advance notice”. Maybe, that’s what YOU used to think?
NEWSFLASH! The rest of us know it is because they can sense it before us, because our senses are tuned differently than animals.
See, animals that thought more like you, would have died off quicker in the wild because you don’t look at warning signs very seriously. Those of us that do, would have survived longer and had offspring that survived longer and thought more like us.
Humans have “unnaturally” let people who think like you back into the gene pool, and you procreate – and make more of you.
I HOPE YOU JUST WRITE LIKE THIS TO FOSTER DEBATE. IF SO, CUDOS, IT’S WORKING.
If you find that your spell check is working over time, then you really need to consider going back to school, all things considered.
@Dumde Dum…ah hem…your wife IS educated. Perhaps you should deal with your resentment??
Maybe animal instincts makes those animals anxious because it’s very natural that their priority is their survival. So, I find it normal that they felt anxious of what is happening.
I think the funniest thing about this volcano issue is that people are predisposed into worrying about it so much that they go to extents to try and convince themselves that the worst that can happen will. Yes, the volcano is coming around to the due date, but the thing is that the due date they mention is only a guess. There are a number of circumstances that need to be met to kick the eruption off and those kinds of events are not common, so the real due date is just whenever those extreme events may occur. That park could potentially sit dormant for another half a million years if there is nothing to break it open, and we are talking extreme events here to do just that. By the same measure, the volcano was capable of erupting and killing us all when Jesus was born, and when the Great Pyramid of Giza was built. Still waiting… Why people are so obsessed with their own death is beyond me personally. Even if something like the volcano erupting did happen, what could anyone really do about it. No one can prep enough food to last 3 to 5 years after the ash fall and the animal die off. Not even strong hunting skills can save you with no animals to hunt. In my opinion, we should be more concerned with experiencing life and enjoying the time we naturally have, not prepping for it’s end.
He said, “combat the rumors to AVOID PANIC…” I would go with the bison… we are 30,000 years overdue for eruption.
[/sarcasm]Duh…..it’s because of Global Warming [/end sarcasm]
I told this story to my wife, who, though not a scientist, works in the medical profession. “Animals know when disaster is coming” she said, and refused to listen to science. Imagination overrules science once again, even for someone who is supposedly “educated.”