ANTELOPE ISLAND—One of the most important services that Antelope Island State Park renders is to Utah’s ecology. In the late 1800s, bison had almost been hunted to extinction, with fewer than 1,000 left but on Antelope Island, they are thriving.

The herd on Antelope Island ranges anywhere from 515-700 depending on the season and calving and is only one of many bison herds in the intermountain west. Since the overhunting in the 1800s, many conservation efforts have been made to bring these majestic creatures back from the brink. 

Still, their numbers are nowhere near where they once were and where at one time settlers could look out and see many herds roaming the plains, it takes much more work to be able to see them in their natural habitat. It is perhaps because of that fact that occasionally, the Utah Department of Wildlife Resources (DWR) comes across the occasional injury caused by bison.

While rare, the DWR has cited the cause of the majority of these incidents as proximity. “People usually get too close,” Antelope Island Park Manager Jeremy Shaw said. “They always want to get closer and closer for photos. And any time there is a dangerous interaction with wildlife, it’s usually because the person got too close.”

With as relatively small as Antelope Island is, the Bison herd can be hard to miss, but how can visitors interact with these animals safely? The DWR has provided a list of ways to safely appreciated these animals without endangering either the visitor or the bison themselves.

• If you see a bison and it stops what it is doing and starts paying attention to you, you are too close and should slowly back away. 

• If a bison is in the middle of the road, wait for it to pass. Do not get out of your vehicle.

• If a bison is on the side of the road, feel free to slowly drive past it. But again, stay inside your vehicle.

• If you see a bison in the distance, do not walk across the rangeland to get closer to it. Take your photos from a safe distance.

• If you are hiking and a bison is close to you or on the trail, you should either back away and return the way you came, or leave the trail and give the animal a very wide berth when passing it. It is OK to go off the trail if your safety is at risk. 

“We’ve got trail restrictions on Antelope Island in the backcountry, but safety trumps those rules,” Shaw said. “If you are in the backcountry hiking and you come across any wildlife that’s in your path, we urge you to travel around it. Whatever distance you think you should remain from the animal, double it – that’s how far back you should stay.” 

More information on these and other important wildlife safety tips can be found at https://www.wildawareutah.org/wildlife/.