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They hand out leaflets warning about buffalo, I have one framed as a souvenir.
I saw a german kid pick up a ground squirrel at Bryce Canyon NP. The cute fuzzy squirrel predictably bit him. The tourists from overseas don't know about our critters and sometimes learn the hard way.
Back in the 1930s my wife's father picked up a fuzzy animal and that was how he learned about skunks. They didn't have them in the old country.
Maybe they should put signs up all over the place at Yellowstone - at the park entrance, and all over the park itself - saying things like, "Warning! Animals in Park Are Wild And May Be Dangerous if Approached." They could just put signs like that up all over the place, so people could not possibly miss them.
Oh. Wait. They already do.
Sorry, no sympathy from me. Stay home and watch Disney reruns if you're too damned stupid to pay attention to the warning signs.
Sorry, no sympathy from me. Stay home and watch Disney reruns if you're too damned stupid to pay attention to the warning signs.
Is anybody on this forum giving them sympathy? Most people are talking about evolution.
But, after mentioning Disney, you do have that 'walk and talk with the animals' crowd. Many, even after reading the warnings, are still of the mind that animals are their friends and that only animal haters would ever be attacked by their 'friends'.
The Park Service will never make physiological testing mandatory for admittance. Darwin is taking care of the problem.
I live 80 miles from Yellowstone, and have visited the park more times than I can remember.
I do remember watching 4 people getting stomped by buffalo, 2 people being gored by bull elk, and one time when a young mother bear who was only trying to cross the river over a bridge, because her tiny cubs couldn't swim, nearly cause a mass panic when she snarled at all the onlookers as a warning to give her some room.
Different incidents in different years. But all from the same thing- people who think they are a safe distance away from the wildlife quickly learning they were mistaken. by the time they realized their mistake, it was far too late to do anything about it.
I don't think it's possible to stop. Most folks really don't know how far away a safe distance is from wild critters. But unless someone is Usane Bolt, the farther away you can get from a wild creature, the safer you are.
If you come close enough to alarm them, they will defend themselves and their young as a first instinct, and there is not a single wild creature in Yellowstone Park who doesn't know everything about human behavior there is.
If any person threatens them by coming too close, or allows a child to come too close, the critter knows exactly how much aggression they can get away with before the rangers go after them. They also know just how long it will take to flee and disappear before the ranger arrives, too. Any of them. Don't try to mess around with them, and do not taunt them.
Do remember that every living creature in Yellowstone is either prey or a predator, and every one of them that is living has been one or the other before you ever came. Everything is always a matter of life and death to them, even if it's not for you.
It can suddenly become a matter of life and death for you too, if you ignore that fact.
And for goodness' sake, don't try to bully any of them with your vehicle. I've watched elk and buffalo kill more cars they have killed people. Your car is safer inside it than outside it, but it's no bank vault.
Many people forget that wild animals can have good and bad days. Their temperament can change as they age; just like many of our pets. Sometimes they are in pain and sometimes they will protect themselves and sometimes their young. Sometimes they are hungry and sometimes well fed. Yes; they might warn or might not. It is best to not take a chance and keep your distance.
I remember reading about an incident years ago. Some guy actually walked right up to one and patted it on its mane. Witnesses said the bison kind of just tossed its head around, almost like it was shooing him away, and hooked him with one of its horns and tossed him. It didn’t even take any steps towards him from what I remember. It was a serious injury, don’t remember if he survived.
These are enormously powerful animals. They don’t necessarily need to have bad intentions to harm you. People have no clue as to the strength of large wild animals. Take a look at this one. It looks like nothing but she says at the end she suffered 4 broken ribs; and he just wanted to play.
I was only in Yellowstone a loooong time ago but even back then, as we were in the line of traffic trying to leave the park, a bear came out of the woods and people starting rolling their windows down for whatever reason. The bear was mostly just standing there but I rolled our car window up (no electric windows back in those days) and just in time because the bear came walking over to our car. For the rest of the trip I had a wet bear paw swipe mark on the outside of the window because he must have put his paw out while I was putting the window up.
But there were idiots standing outside their cars! I only saw bison from a great distance. They were something to behold. Seems that there must be a lot more of them than there were back then. Where I live we can't even have bird feeders because of black bears. And I'm extra careful in the spring when the mother bears are out with their cubs. I think some of these people think they're in Disney World, lol.
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