We Should Allow People To Pet The Buffalo

If you've lived near Lawton long enough, you know that the general public gets a solid reminder not to mess with the herd of bison in the Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge. It's always the same, a video pops up on social media of some yahoo trying to get close to one of our buffalo, and these majestic beasts do what comes naturally to them.

Sometimes it's a charge, others a quick headbutt proving those horns are real. Either way, it's the only way these encounters can end, and constantly telling people not to is keeping the process of natural selection from taking place in a preserved natural habitat. This warning is keeping the course of nature from happening in a place where nature is paramount.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not secretly looking forward to seeing some idiot get trampled and dismembered on social media. The older I get, the less I can watch that kind of stuff. But to deny nature the chance to remind people that nature is still wild seems like we're cheating death in that Final Destination sort of way, and I'm sure nobody wants a boring car wreck death as their final hoorah.

All the same, I don't think this sort of behavior should be encouraged either. That's just as much messing with nature as actively preventing it. The point being, things tend to naturally sort themselves out. It just occasionally takes those with the lowest IQs and highest senses of bravery to offer a fair warning from time to time that this isn't the best idea in the world.