What can buffaloes teach us about conflict?

Unlike another blog post I wrote, this article is actually about buffaloes—the large…very large animal. Turns out many of us interchange the word buffalo with bison, and the latter is actually correct when we’re talking about the North American herd animal.

But no matter what you call them, I found this tidbit about the animal while scrolling through social media and I think it bears repeating.  Turns out, both buffaloes and cows sense when a storm begins to roll across the plains.

East and West

Most storms travel west to east, and cows move east to outrun the storm. Of course, they will never outrun it; it will eventually catch up to them. They are only delaying the inevitable difficulty and hardship.

On the other hand, buffaloes sense the storm in the west, and they begin to move west —directly into the storm. They know if they head straight toward the storm, they will encounter it faster and move beyond it faster.

 

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