Do not do this is if you ever visit a National Park.
After the Covid-19 pandemic caused a lot of people to stay at home and not travel last year, many people are now venturing into our National Parks for vacation and to explore. While it is great to see attendance at these parks up, the flip side of the coin is that some people are just acting downright dumb when they get there. Especially when it comes to the native wildlife.
One of the latest viral videos to hit the Internet is no different. This footage, which appears to have been shot in the Mammoth Hot Springs area of the park, shows a man who appears to be purposely antagonizing a cow elk.
He keeps a cart between him and the animal, but the elk can only take so much before giving him a bit of a scare. Whatever you do when you visit a National Park, do not do this!
If you listen carefully, it sounds like some bystanders are clearly trying to warn this man that he has gotten too close to the elk. He ignores the warnings and keeps harassing the animal. He was lucky the elk did not decide to start bashing his face in with those sharp hooves. We are equally surprised there were no rangers around to put a stop to this incident.
Considering we recently saw a tourist cited for getting too close to a grizzly in another viral video, it would not surprise us to see the same thing happen in this case. If the man can be identified of course. At the very least we can hope he was humiliated a bit after falling to the ground after realizing the elk meant business.
Yellowstone has guidelines in place asking visitors to stay 25 yards away from large animals like bison, elk, and moose, and 100 yards away from large predators like bears and wolves for a reason. It is not just for the safety of people, but the animals too. Let us remember this is their home we are visiting when we come to Yellowstone. Observe and admire the animals from a distance, but do not forget they are wild animals!
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For more outdoor content from Travis Smola, be sure to follow him on Twitter and check out his Geocaching and Outdoors with Travis YouTube channels.
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