How to model riding out a stampede?

[Nytmare]

As someone who has witnessed several instances of spooked animals (cattle and horses) stampeding, my anecdotal experiences run counter to several of your logical outcomes.

Hence why I wouldn't want to test "standing still", but the principle, of making yourself obvious like a tree or pillar of flame would cause the animals to go around you by nature of their object avoidance code in their brain.

That object avoidance software not only gets really faulty when they get scared, but it gets trampled by the train wreck of other guys' object avoidance software pushing from behind. They pick a direction and run, and that's through whatever is in front of them that is their size or smaller. That's through fences, walls, trees, outhouses, into, up and over vehicles, and through other livestock.

Being an obvious obstacle (tall enough to be seen by most of the herd, not just the front cows will get you avoided. Give choice of open field or cluster of trees, the stampede whill head for the open field as they ALWAYS move toward open spaces, not confining spaces.

If the party has setup camp with reasonably big tents, the cattle will probably not run straight through the camp as you will appear to be an obstacle.

A lone person standing tall is not an obstacle, it's a speed bump. The same goes for a lone person on horseback.

I've seen spooked cattle run through (and do serious damage to) a line of about 20 or 30 pickup trucks and trailers, I'm assuming tents wouldn't do much to stop them. These are not calm, organized, pedestrians with a sense of personal space. It's not that the cow in front is going to try to avoid the tree, it's that he's being carried on a wave of other cows and he has no say in the matter. It's a mob, and the only thing each individual is trying to do is desperately stay afloat and not to get trampled to death by his friends.

 

[Janx]

As someone who has witnessed several instances of spooked animals (cattle and horses) stampeding, my anecdotal experiences run counter to several of your logical outcomes.

Good to know. I figured that "appearing as an obstacle" would help BEFORE the herd started heading your directing (such that they could alter course a bit).

about how big of a herd have you seen stampede? I reckon a natural herd might not be as big as a man made herd.

Also, about how far will they run?

Spooked deer run for a mile or two, then they stop and pant hard. My buddy's observation is that's another human advantage, they can keep pursuing the deer longer, without stopping.*

*I reference deer a lot, because they are a herd animal and my buddy's ranch has shifted to deer farming for the last 20 years, so I'm getting a lot more info on them.

 

[Nytmare]

about how big of a herd have you seen stampede? I reckon a natural herd might not be as big as a man made herd.

Also, about how far will they run?

I'm not really sure, horses were three different occasions. The first was only about a dozen, but they went through a fence and the side of a stable, the other two were probably closer forty or fifty and both times they took out some pretty sizable film equipment and almost a camera crew. As for the cattle stampede, it was only once, and though I have no real idea, I'd say that there were easily over a hundred.

I have no idea about how far they'd go before they felt "safe" and stopped running. I'd guess that would have a lot to do with what scared them, and how many of them there were. As far as we can tell, the dozen horses stampeded cause of a loose tarp and stopped as soon as they were outside of the stable yard. The two larger horse stampedes were because one pissed-off horse decided he was done filming and herd mentality kicked in.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

As someone who has witnessed several instances of spooked animals (cattle and horses) stampeding, my anecdotal experiences run counter to several of your logical outcomes.



That object avoidance software not only gets really faulty when they get scared, but it gets trampled by the train wreck of other guys' object avoidance software pushing from behind. They pick a direction and run, and that's through whatever is in front of them that is their size or smaller. That's through fences, walls, trees, outhouses, into, up and over vehicles, and through other livestock.



A lone person standing tall is not an obstacle, it's a speed bump. The same goes for a lone person on horseback.

I've seen spooked cattle run through (and do serious damage to) a line of about 20 or 30 pickup trucks and trailers, I'm assuming tents wouldn't do much to stop them. These are not calm, organized, pedestrians with a sense of personal space. It's not that the cow in front is going to try to avoid the tree, it's that he's being carried on a wave of other cows and he has no say in the matter. It's a mob, and the only thing each individual is trying to do is desperately stay afloat and not to get trampled to death by his friends.

Y'know, I've seen & analyzed enough stadium mob trampling disasters that I should have come to similar conclusions...if the mob/stampede is big enough, it doesn't matter what the first 1-3 ranks of the panicked see and want to do, they will be pressed forward by the force of flesh behind them.

 

[Janx]

Y'know, I've seen & analyzed enough stadium mob trampling disasters that I should have come to similar conclusions...if the mob/stampede is big enough, it doesn't matter what the first 1-3 ranks of the panicked see and want to do, they will be pressed forward by the force of flesh behind them.

That actually brings up an interesting data point.

My theory was based on a stampede starting on the external border, and reacting by running away (presumably from a threat).

What Danny points out is if the center/rear is driving the herd a direction, that's a bit different. A big enough mass in the rear, reacting to a problem, starts pushing into the rest of the herd. The rest of the herd senses the danger and gets scared, plus is pressured to move forward (relative to the incoming rear mass) and the direction is set by the guys in the back, NOT the guys in the front who can actually see where to go.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Which is why Paleolithic hunters adopted that whole scaring herd animals off the cliff hunting method...

 

[DanotheSlender]

Wall of fire comes to mind as a good stampede turning/splitting spell.

Game On!!

 

[Janx]

The OP specified bison. If he's talking about an old west herd, there could literally be millions of them! (Thus making the width of the herd 'infinite' for any practicle difference.) So fly, levitate, wall of flame, etc. or you die if you can't make it to a stand of trees in time. Or, if you can kill several in the lead not too far in front of you the rest will go around them, and you.

I couldn't find any proof, but a herd of a million bison sounds dubious. Master Wikipedius does confirm that there were probably 50 million bison in North America at one time, but the probability that herds contained 1million or more at a time strikes me as unlikely.

Given cows more pokey movement while grazing, they would strip a sizable area in the FRONT of the herd before the BACK got to eat if the herd was that big. The land just wouldn't sustain a mega-large herd as it mowed across america.

I don't doubt large herds existed. i would have liked to see some article that had some quote from a hunter with a guesstimate (that hopefully wasn't exagerated).

I did learn some other interesting things:
bison can jump 6 feet
there are multiple bulls in the herd (the alpha bull doesn't drive out all the other bulls, which would reduce herd size like other herd animals).

One of their defensive patterns while fleeing wolves is to put the cows/calves in front, with the bulls in the rear to defend them from the wolves (because a bull can take out a wolf). This is as a moving formation (not quite a stampede, but controlled rush I guess).

 

[El Mahdi]

deleted

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

IOW, a single herd might cover a good portion of a state...