G.E. Smith
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About a mile west of Madison Junction in YNP a bison calf had been accidentally killed. Story I got was, it was injured and the herd had surrounded it for protection and had accidentally trampled it to death.
When I arrived the herd was gone and its mom, the bison cow was standing over it. She was trying her best to get the calf up. She picked it up several times in her mouth and tossed it up in the air. It looked like a rag doll flipping around. She also kicked it several times in hopes it would get up. You could tell she was stressed, panicked and grieving.
The whole time she was doing this a coyote sat and watched about 75 yards away. The coyote tried to sneak in several times and the cow would chase it away. Finally the bison cow gave up and slowly walked away. As soon as the coyote felt it was safe it wasted no time on that free meal it saw. It tore open the calf and gorged itself. Then the coyote walked away and disappeared over a ridge. In about five minutes it came back, gorged and walked away. Several of us think the coyote was regurgitating and caching the calf to feed pups. A den was in the area. It repeated this process three times while I was there.
Fascinating to watch, but you could really feel the pain of what that cow was going through just by watching her actions.
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