snowdeal.org - conflux: what are the odds of a white buffalo being struck by lightning?

conflux

what are the odds of a white buffalo being struck by lightning?

i think like most people my first thought upon hearing that the third white buffalo born on a wisconsin farm was struck by lightning was, what are the odds? apparently the calculating the odds of a single white buffalo being born in the first place is difficult at least in part because - for reasons that aren't entirely clear - more white buffalo are being born and about 2 dozen have been reared in the past 12 years out of a captive population of about 500,000 animals ( which i guess is another way at getting at the odds cited by the executive director of the national bison association of at least one in two-hundred thousand - about 2 are born per year out of a population of 500,000 which is 1:250,000 ). so lets say the odds a white buffalo being born each year are about one in 250,000 which is about the same as the odds of dying in a plane crash. not great odds, but a whole lot better than winning the lottery. calculating the odds of three white buffalo being born on the same farm is a bit more difficult without knowing the farm herd size, the number of births each year and the number of years between white buffalo births. someone better versed in statistics than i will need to calculate that number. 1:1,000,000? 1:10,000,000?

it's probably not a bad assumption that the white buffalo's chance of being struck by lightning is probably about the same as any that of any other livestock. surprisingly, at least to me, in wisconsin lightning is responsible for 80% of accidental livestock losses, which isn't the same as the odds of being struck directly by lightning since a part of those losses come from barns burning down after strikes, but still, it's a lot bigger number than i would have suspected.

bonus points will be awarded to anyone who can find a better estimate of the number of lifestock actually struck or directly killed by lightning.

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what are the odds of a white buffalo being struck by lightning?

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