Inside Fort Worth's annual bison checkup roundup

It’s not your typical doctor’s appointment.

Once a year, the bison at the Fort Worth Nature Center are rounded up for their annual health checkups. But getting the massive animals from the pasture to their appointments takes patience, teamwork and a little strategy.

This year’s roundup involved moving nine bison through a series of gates and into a chute, one at a time, where they could receive medical attention.

“Once you get them, you know, caged in a pen, they definitely get more anxious and worked up,” said Jared Hall, natural resource supervisor at the Fort Worth Nature Center.

One trick to keeping things moving is using the herd’s natural instincts.

“If we can get a mom to go in the chute first, the babies will usually follow,” Hall said.

Once inside, the bison receive a series of health checks and preventative treatments.

“So they get dewormed, and checked for parasites, and then they get some respiratory disease [vaccines], and the females get a brucellosis shot as well,” Hall said.

Keeping the herd healthy is about more than the animals themselves. The bison rotate across approximately 240 acres of pasture at the nature center, grazing the land and playing an important role in managing the landscape.

“Bison , you know, we’re historically here. And so I think they are a critical piece to management here at the nature center,” Hall said.

The annual roundup also provides a hands-on learning opportunity for students in Texas Christian University’s ranch management program.

Students help move the animals through the facility while learning about bison behavior and the challenges of managing such large animals.

“It teaches them a lot about animal behavior and how the animal responds to different pressure points. And then it also teaches them the uniqueness of managing bison through a facility,” said Lee Knox, a TCU professor.

For some students, the experience marked their first time getting an up-close look at the animals.

“It was really cool. I’ve seen them from a distance, but nothing up close, so it was really cool to get to see them,” said TCU student Jacklyn Chambers.

For Hall, the annual roundup is also a reminder of what makes bison such remarkable animals.

“They just have a very unique history and ecology, and the way they interact with their landscape is just fascinating to me,” Hall said.

The entire roundup takes a morning, but once the checkups are finished, it takes only seconds for the bison to head back out to pasture.

This story was originally reported for broadcast by NBC DFW. AI tools helped convert the story into a digital article, and an NBC DFW journalist edited it again before publication.