A man was seriously injured Friday evening at Yellowstone National Park after an agitated bull bison charged him through a campground, hooking him with its horn and flipping him several feet into the air. The attack, captured on video by professional photographer Mike MacLeod, occurred at Bridge Bay Campground, south of Fishing Bridge, and marked the park's second reported human-bison incident of 2026.
The unidentified man was walking with his grandson when the bison targeted them from roughly 100 yards away, well beyond the 25-yard minimum distance Yellowstone requires visitors to maintain from bison. According to MacLeod, the bull had already charged a group of children who were taking photos from a safe distance before the man and his grandson arrived. The children scattered, and the bison eventually stopped to wallow in a patch of dirt, at which point the pair came around a corner, unaware of the earlier commotion.
«They were just out for an evening walk, just happened to turn around the corner, and there's a bison,» MacLeod told Cowboy State Daily. The pair initially stopped to take photos while the animal appeared to be resting. When the bison began to stand, the grandfather recognized the danger and moved with his grandson behind a group of trees. A white pickup truck then drove past, which MacLeod said seemed to agitate the animal further. «The bison was charging the truck,» MacLeod said. «The guy in the truck saw that happening, and he just kept going. The bison (then went) to where these two were hiding in the trees.»
The footage shows the enormous animal barreling into the trees as the man desperately tries to stay on the opposite side of the trunks. The bison briefly becomes distracted, taking its anger out on a small sapling, before spotting the man again. The bull races after him, catches him with its horn, and sends him flipping high into the air before he crashes onto his side. «The bison hooked him with his left horn on his hip and tossed him in the air,» MacLeod said. «He made a perfect flip and landed on his side. The bison was at least 6 feet tall, and (the victim) was several feet above him.»
Even more terrifying, the bison did not immediately leave. Instead, it stood over the injured man, shaking its head while he remained on the ground. MacLeod stopped recording and ran toward the animal, yelling and trying to draw its attention away from the victim. Several other witnesses followed his lead, and together they managed to scare the bison away. «I was really afraid he was going to gore the guy on the ground, so I stopped videotaping and ran at the bison, yelled loud, and was trying to be as big and intimidating as possible,» MacLeod said.
Yellowstone EMS soon arrived and took over. MacLeod later spoke with the man's grandson, who told him his grandfather «has some pretty significant injuries and is not out of the woods yet.» The National Park Service had not released an official statement or an update on the man's condition as of Sunday morning.
Unlike many high-profile wildlife encounters in Yellowstone, this does not appear to be a case of someone approaching a bison for a selfie or ignoring park warnings. MacLeod said people in the campground were keeping their distance and actively warning others as the agitated animal moved through the area. «I didn't see anybody getting close,» he said. «People were yelling, 'Careful, there's a bison coming through,' and they kept their distance. They were very respectful.» MacLeod added: «You can tell he was agitated, pissed off, and charging anything and everything.»
Bull bison can become especially aggressive during the annual rut, or mating season, which usually begins around late July. During this period, animals may wallow, bellow, challenge rivals, and become much less tolerant of anything they perceive as a threat. The attack was Yellowstone's second reported human-bison incident of 2026. A 12-year-old visitor was injured June 26 near Mud Volcano, north of Fishing Bridge. The National Park Service did not disclose the extent of that child's injuries.
MacLeod, who has spent considerable time around bison, said he had never seen behavior quite like this. «I've been around bison for a while, but this was really weird,» he said. «Why did it pick those two? There were so many people around, and most of them were closer to and behind the bison. It was really weird.» The incident underscores that even when visitors follow park rules, unpredictable wildlife behavior can lead to dangerous outcomes. The man and his grandson appear to have done everything correctly, but were simply in the wrong place at the exact moment a 2,000-pound animal decided to charge.
