Escaped buffalo still roaming Sharon, Roseboom

8/7/2019

By Jim Poole

A herd of Brian Grubb’s buffalo are still on the loose, and he faces a tough job to get them back on his Sharon farm.
About 100 bison escaped from his West Creek Buffalo Company on July 25, and Mr. Grubb was able to corral 25 of them promptly.
Since then, Mr. Grubb has captured 10 more. The remaining 65 remain at large.
Those are in two groups, one larger than the other, that range between Honey Hill in Roseboom and Rosenburg Road in Sharon.
“I make contact with the larger herd twice a day, morning and night,” Mr. Grubb said. “I’m focusing on the main herd.”
His relationship with the herd will allow Mr. Grubb to make some progress, but he said his “biggest challenge is getting the facilities to corral them.”
He’s hoping to tranquilize them with a dart gun so that he can eventually transport them back to his farm.
In the meantime, however, nearby farmers have complained that the buffalo are eating first- and second-cut hay, a complaint confirmed by State Police in Richfield Springs, who investigated.
Mr. Grubb sympathized but said buffalo will eat grass, leaves and hay while on the loose.
“It’s all stuff that can be replanted and re-grown,” Mr. Grubb said, adding that insurance should cover farmers’ losses.
Of the original 75 that were loose, 30 were adults, including three bulls, and the rest were calves. There was no breakdown on the remaining 65.
Mr. Grubb could give no timeline of when the recovery would proceed.
“We have a lot of work to do,” he said.
Mr. Grubb has cautioned people not to approach the buffalo. Although they’re not normally aggressive, they could feel threatened and may be potentially dangerous.