At least he probably got some good pictures out of the whole ordeal…
It’s hard to imagine what you’d do if you found yourself in a predicament like this. A young, aggressive bull elk, has you pinned on the ground, and his two small, but sharp, antlers are just waiting to rip through your neck.
Here, the man stayed incredibly calm which would be nearly impossible to do.
Most people would get up and run for the hills, but that’s usually a mistake when it comes to aggressive wildlife. You run, they chase you, you die… it can go bad.
Staying as calm as possible is usually the right move in these situations, but you should still try to get away from the animal as quickly as possible.
Even though this elk is young, and perhaps even being a bit playful, it could have seriously injured this man. It could have gored him, stomped him out, or just ran him right over.
The video starts with the young bull elk with his forehead pressed up against the mans hear as he sits crisscross applesauce on the ground.
The man keeps his head down as the elk keeps ramming his head into him, and the whole time you’re just waiting for one of those antlers to cut into him.
This continues on and the man stays put as the elk even stabs at him a few times.
The elk circles around to his backside and the man flips around to see him coming. The elk starts to get a little more aggressive and the man pushes his antlers off a few times.
The wild part is when it backs off for a second and the man starts snapping photos.
This is where I really think he is a little dumb… this animal is fairly aggressive and he is still calm enough to take photos. It makes a person wonder if he does understand the danger.
It keeps ramming the man and eventually he gets up and backs up as a car comes in closer. He hops in the vehicle and the elk starts sniffing all his gear. The elk digs through it and they honk at it to scare it off.
Sadly, they ended up in the euthanizing of the Elk according to Gatlinburg Tn Guide.
The elk continued to show signs of aggression and the only real option was to put it down with there being so many people going through the area.
The sad part is that it’s all the fault of humans. And really, if this photographer had of backed away and not brought so much attention to the elk it probably would have made out fine.
“The elk had been coming back to that area in search of food, and had begun associating humans with food… it could not be re-trained to be fearful of humans.”
If we let the animals be wild, and enjoy from afar, the risks are much lower and better for nature in general.
That’s what these parks are for, it’s not a zoo, the animals are not interactive. When they get used to humans it really never results in much good, not for the tourists, and not for the animals.
Nevertheless, what a wild encounter.
