How to Die

My newest book, How To Die In The Outdoors: 110 Grisly Ways to Croak, can be ordered pre-publication now at www.amazon.com. Here is an excerpt:

"One of America's greatest losses, bison (Bison bison) once flowed like a vast, hairy sea, numbering in the millions, from the Alleghenies to the Sierra Nevada, from southern Texas to the Great Slave Lake in Canada, wandering in search of grass and water. Resembling old world buffaloes, North American bison are a different species distinguished by massive, shaggy heads and shoulders and relatively small hindquarters. A mature bull may reach 6.5 feet in height and weigh in at more than a ton. Unmolested, they are a docile group, what remains of them, not given to harming humans.

Often viewed with pet-like affection by tourists to areas where they are protected, bison are sometimes pressed too closely by humans, arousing their sense of preservation, a survival instinct that has caused bison attacks in parks to outnumber bear attacks by more than four to one. Thundered into by the huge weight and muscle of a bison, you'll go somersaulting, coming to a stop battered, bruised, probably broken, and often dead. In addition, a horn or two will have gored you, in the butt if you’re running away, in the abdomen if you face the charge. Your day will really fall apart if you happen to disturb an old bull whose herd follows nervously after him. In such a case of trampling, depending on the size of the herd, what is left of you may be difficult to recognize and separate from the chips of dung that typically litter bison feeding grounds.

To Live: American bison rarely charge a human unless they approach to within 25 feet or less.