\n\t\t\t\t\t\tWhen 2026 started, I decided I’d revisit some places I hadn’t been to in a few years.That led to an up-close experience with bison at the Neal Smith National Wildlife Refuge on Sunday.For those who don’t know, there’s a free 5-mile drive to check out the animals in the 800-acre area near Prairie City. I wasn’t sure my friend, Kathleen, and I would see any bison, elk or other wildlife.But we did. We really did.At one point, 12-15 bison surrounded my car, licking the wheel wells in particular. I slowly pulled forward at one point, and one bison butted my car in response. We stayed put a while longer.Several other cars got the same attention.Please note: We did NOT get out of the vehicle per instructions listed on signs. We also did not feed the animals or honk the horn. Our bison adventure ended with a visit to the car wash to get rid of all the bison spit.From the archivesFrom 1996: Iowans get first glimpse of bison at Neal Smith National Wildlife Refuge\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\tPRAIRIE CITY, Iowa \u2014<\/strong> \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n When 2026 started, I decided I’d revisit some places I hadn’t been to in a few years.<\/p>\n That led to an up-close experience with bison at the Neal Smith National Wildlife Refuge on Sunday.<\/p>\n For those who don’t know, there’s a free 5-mile drive to check out the animals in the 800-acre area near Prairie City. I wasn’t sure my friend, Kathleen, and I would see any bison, elk or other wildlife.<\/p>\n But we did. We really did.<\/p>\n At one point, 12-15 bison surrounded my car, licking the wheel wells in particular. I slowly pulled forward at one point, and one bison butted my car in response. We stayed put a while longer.<\/p>\n Several other cars got the same attention.<\/p>\n Please note: We did NOT get out of the vehicle per instructions listed on signs. We also did not feed the animals or honk the horn. <\/p>\n Our bison adventure ended with a visit to the car wash to get rid of all the bison spit.<\/p>\n From the archives<\/p>\n From 1996: Iowans get first glimpse of bison at Neal Smith National Wildlife Refuge<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When 2026 started, I decided I’d revisit some places I hadn’t been to in a few years.That led…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":563648,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[4749,7910,3420,2332,41147,91444,59439,53707,7776,245955,245960,245956,41145,245957,245959,245961,449,245958,25548,159,22913,67,132,68,6189,22674,837],"class_list":{"0":"post-563647","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-animal","9":"tag-area","10":"tag-bison","11":"tag-car","12":"tag-central-iowa","13":"tag-elk","14":"tag-first-glimpse","15":"tag-instruction","16":"tag-iowa","17":"tag-iowa-wildlife","18":"tag-iowan","19":"tag-kathleen","20":"tag-kcci","21":"tag-neal-smith-national-wildlife-refuge","22":"tag-neal-smith-refuge","23":"tag-other-wildlife","24":"tag-point","25":"tag-prairie-city","26":"tag-response","27":"tag-science","28":"tag-u-s-fish-and-wildlife-service","29":"tag-united-states","30":"tag-unitedstates","31":"tag-us","32":"tag-vehicle","33":"tag-while","34":"tag-wildlife"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116007579292028579","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/563647","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=563647"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/563647\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/563648"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=563647"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=563647"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=563647"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}