As we get into late summer, tourist season should be wrapping up in the next month or so. We're guessing the animals in our National Parks can hardly wait based on some of the outlandish behavior we've seen this year. The summer months are always bad for dumb tourist actions, but it seems like 2022 has been dumber than most. Videos we've seen coming from places like Yellowstone and Glacier National Park this year are a big reason why. It's like the advice from rangers to stay at least 25 yards away from all animals goes in one ear and out the other without a single moment of comprehension by some visitors.
As proof, we submit yet another video from the Instagram account "touronsofyellowstone." We've seen plenty of encounters with elk, bear, and bison this year, but this is the first example we've seen of someone doing something dumb with a bighorn sheep. This large ram finds himself stuck in a parking lot at Logan Pass. He's got tourists on one side, parked cars on two others, and another tourist who walks right up to the animal like he's a house cat. How this tourist avoided being head butted by the ram is beyond us.
The disrespect for wildlife in so many of these videos simply staggers us. This poor bighorn had literally nowhere to go, and this guy decided to keep crowding it anyway.
The couple standing by their pickup aren't innocent here either. They should have backed off and given the ram a lane to leave the area. The guy was lucky. Bighorns aren't as large as an elk or a bison, but there is no doubt they could do some real damage with those horns if they wanted. We're just hoping a ranger can identify this guy later and shell out some appropriate tickets. At least the bighorn walked away unscathed.
If your summer plans include a visit to a National Park with wildlife like bighorn sheep, please give them a wide berth and space to flee the area if they choose. Remember we are visitors in their natural habitat, and they deserve for us to respect them enough to observe at a safe distance.
For more outdoor content from Travis Smola be sure to follow him on Twitter. For original videos, check out his Geocaching and Outdoors with Travis YouTube channels.
