A scared, exhausted bison rescued from the sea embodies hope for isle residents

HANALEI, Kauai >>

The rescue of an exhausted and frightened juvenile bison from the ocean off Hanalei Beach Park Wednesday represented both the ongoing trauma of Kauai’s storm victims and the efforts of people who continue to pull together to help those who need it most.

“It symbolizes this whole flood,” said Meredith Zietz of Hanalei. “It says a lot about our community that we’re coming together for the people — and for the animals.”

Andy Friend, who co-runs a Hanalei bison ranch with Stuart Wellington, had never seen anything like Wednesday’s ocean rescue of the female bison.

“No, that’s pretty unique,” Friend said. “How it started swimming out there, we don’t know. … It was about 200, 300 yards out when they put a rope around it. It was pretty exhausted.”

It took two boats, a personal watercraft and four paniolo, who patiently let the exhausted bovine squat along the shoreline for nearly 15 minutes before coaxing it into a trailer.

The crowd watching from Hanalei Beach Park went wild with applause when the bison finally got into a trailer and on its way back home.

Austin Wellington, Stuart Wellington’s son, has so far helped round up about a dozen wayward bison who scattered in panic during the storm.

“But nothing like this one,” Stuart Wellington said.

Another wayward bison was found standing on a reef off of Blackpot Beach while the storm was still underway Sunday morning, Friend said.

“But the one today (Wednesday) is the only one that was actually found in the water.”

Another bison on Sunday ran through the backyard of the home that Zietz shares with her husband, Dusty, and their 8-month-old son, Roan. It then ran onto Kuhio Highway.

Before Friend and Wellington’s crew from the ranch retrieved the bison that ran through her yard, Zietz said it looked scared and confused — not unlike the look on the faces of so many flood victims across the Garden Isle.

Wednesday’s ocean rescue began around 9:30 a.m.

Bomun Bock-Chung, 39, and his 11-year-old sister, Penny Songtree, were riding back from Wainiha to Hanalei Beach Park aboard one of the many volunteer relief boats when they spotted what Songtree thought was a floating log.

“Then I saw it swimming and I thought, ‘Is that a giant dog?’ ” she said. “ ‘Oh! It’s a bison.’ Her eyes were all red and there was (salt water) crusted around her mouth.”

As a crowd gathered by the shoreline, lifeguards blared over a loudspeaker: “Get back! There’s a buffalo on the beach!”

Bock-Chung said the boat captain put a rope around it’s stubby horns, then handed the rope to a nearby personal watercraft operator, who initially tried to coax the bison onto his skid.

But the panicked bison kept flailing, Bock-Chung and his sister said. So an inflatable, rigid-hull boat worked with the personal watercraft to slowly nudge it toward the beach.

Austin Wellington and three other paniolo waiting in the sand then threw more ropes around the bison and coaxed it to the shoreline, where it promptly sat in the surf, clearly exhausted, for about 15 minutes.

The paniolo, along with helpers on foot, finally got the bison into a trailer and back on its way to the ranch.

“This is the first time I’ve seen something like this,” Bock-Chung said. “I’ve never seen a bison get towed in on a Jet Ski.”

Before last weekend’s storm, Friend estimated the size of the herd at 90 to 95 bison. With the juvenile female that was returned Wednesday, Friend now estimates the head count at 78 to 80.

But the 160-acre pasture is too deep in mud — and the animals too spooked — to try to get an accurate head count.

With another storm pointed at Kauai and U.S. Army, Hawaii Army National Guard and Hawaii County helicopters constantly buzzing overhead ferrying supplies and flood victims, “The bison are still real nervous,” Friend said. “We don’t want to create any more stress.”

Friend has no idea why the bison set out to sea. But he doubts it had been swimming since the weekend.

“They like water and they’re obviously good swimmers,” he said. “But I don’t know any animal that lives on land that could handle treading water for 24 hours.”

By the time it was back at the ranch, the crew got even better news.

“Some of them (that have been rescued) are very, very fatigued,” Friend said. “When we got it to the pasture, it jumped right out and went running. We were very, very pleased.”

The rescue will be cathartic for so many people across the Garden Isle who are under similar stress, Zietz said.

Her home, which sits on stilts, was spared. But Zietz got depressed when her coop with eight chickens inside washed away in the storm.

So when five of them showed up back home, “that gave me hope — hope that our community will come back from this,” she said. “So we’re real happy these scared and lonely bison are being rounded up and taken back home.”