ANTELOPE ISLAND — The annual mini-roundup of bison here is a cold dash of reality for urbanized folk.
In fact, the chaotic spectacle of bodily fluids, mud and noise was a bit much for a few of the physically and mentally disabled students from Davis and Weber counties who were on Antelope Island Wednesday to witness the Children's Bison Roundup of 250 of the island's 800 bison. The rest will be rounded up over the next two weeks.
Consider young Cynthia Bowers of Hill Field Elementary, who let out a scream when one bison decided to get a little too close to the fence.
She thereafter contented herself with asking every passer-by whether they worked with the animals.
"It's fun to see the little kids. They're just like, whoa!" said Antelope Island State Park accountant Jolene Hatch. "They don't get out much, so this is really something for them to see."
The bison are huge and ornery. One by one Wednesday, they went through a metal chute where they were individually weighed, palpated, inoculated, blood tested and finally released.
When moved from one section of the chute to the next, they would run and crash their heads against the section's front wall. Workers carried radios to communicate with people 3 feet away amid the din of clanging horns and hooves.
When each animal got its head through a steel stock in the chute's last section, wranglers would expose its neck for inoculation by putting a ring in its nostrils and pulling an attached rope to force its head to the side. Blood and mucus would blow from its nose, and body waste would spurt out its other end.
One bull, all 1,650 pounds of him, reared up in the chute, banged the sides, and even when they finally got the ring in his nose and secured the rope, he continued to shake his massive, shaggy head, once tossing a cowboy with it. The watching children gave the whole thing a wide berth.
"And this wasn't anything compared to Diablo," said ranger Mark Rorick, referring to a now-legendary 2,200-pounder.
You'd think that was enough, but most of the children didn't even see one of the roundup's most exhilarating activities: forcing the bison into the chute.
To do that rangers use what they, in understatement, call "push vehicles." A cursory inspection of the three Ford Broncos reveals that they have led a rather active life: All three sport a wide variety of dents, and two have no radiator grill or headlights on the front.
A short ride reveals the reason: Three rangers drive the Broncos reasonably enough toward the herd, but when they reach it, they take off, with the Broncos careening like drunken NASCAR racers through the bumps and sagebrush, going full speed behind a group of bison with their bumpers maybe 3 feet behind the bisons' tails and seemingly inches away from each other while the rangers yell to each other to "stay close, stay close!"
It's a mad ballet of tires, hooves, speed and dust. In the middle of the chase, one bison tries to escape by cutting directly in front of the Bronco driven by John Sullivan, assistant manager of Antelope Island State Park, who manages not to hit it through what can only be divine intervention.
Does he actually do this year after year without hitting the animals?
"Oh yeah. Well, mostly."
The push vehicles chase perhaps eight of the terrified animals through a gate, then whooping park rangers harass them into smaller corrals and finally into the chute, where their travails will be witnessed by cookie-munching children.
You'll have your own chance to see the pas de deux of ranger and beast 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 26, when the main herd will be rounded up by helicopter, truck and horse. The bison will be put through the chute during the same hours Friday, Nov. 1, through Tuesday, Nov. 5. Call 773-2941 for more information.
E-MAIL: aedwards@desnews.com