Not only illegal, but extremely stupid…
Video is surfacing yet again of a dumb tourist doing dumb things at Yellowstone National Park.
America’s greatest nature preserve spreads for nearly 3,500 miles across Wyoming, Montana, and Idaho and is home to a countless number of incredible natural features and wild animals. This draws in over 3 million tourists per year who hope to spot a bison, hike a remote trail, and truly experience the most raw nature this country has to offer.
But the law of large numbers means that many people are going to lead to a significant number of bad decisions being made, the latest of which may just take the cake for dumbest of them all.
As hunters of pretty much any species know, calling animals to your location is a staple. From ducks, to deer, to turkeys, there’s no shortage of companies making calls to replicate all sorts of animal cries and elk hunting is no different.
The type of call varies depending on what you’re trying to sound like, but one of the most common calls mimics the bugling of a bull elk while in the rut.
While I’ve never experienced this in person, videos alone prove it’s one of the most unique and incredible cries in all of the animal kingdom.
Here’s an example if you’ve never heard it or just want to hear it again.
As the video description says, it’s quite haunting, especially if you’re wandering around the woods and hear that nearby.
During mating season, called the rut, elk will bugle to signal their presence to females in the area, but it also alerts competitors that they have a challenge close at hand. Most bull elk don’t like this and will try to find the other bull elk and square off with them to take control of that area.
Well, a wonderful tourist at Yellowstone decided to bring his bugle call with him while roaming the park and spotted a massive bull elk off to the side of a parking lot. I’m sure you can guess what happened next.
The idiot proceeds to walk 15 feet in front of the elk and start calling. As we discussed, elk generally take this as a challenge and prepare to throw antlers to defend their turf.
For some reason, this elk didn’t sprint over and stomp the man, who was of course recording everything on his phone, into oblivion, which he should be very grateful for, but for real what was the best case scenario there? Did you think he was going to do a little dance? Run in circles and put on a show?
Man, these people grind my gears, and since nothing bad happened, I’m sure he ran through the park continuing this insanely bad behavior.
Maybe everyone should have to sit through a class before visiting these national parks, because as we’ve seen time and time again, very bad things can happen quickly.
Elk Lunges At Man At Yellowstone National Park
As the title of this video states, the dumbest animals in Yellowstone National Park almost always have two legs.
The content stream from people doing stupid things around wildlife at the famous national park is almost endless. During the summer especially, it seems like visitors are constantly going up to wild animals despite the multitude (and hard to miss) warnings not to.
Every day, videos of people getting their tires popped by horned beasts, getting chased by elk, and even being gored by bison make their way to the internet, though it worked out in the end for one newly engaged woman despite being sent to the hospital. And here in this video, we have another example of idiots not following simple instructions and finding themselves in harm’s way.
In the clip, a herd of elk is grazing along the side of the roadway within Yellowstone, and cars are slowing down to catch a glimpse of the large deer species. The group of elk looks to be a mixture of males and females, with the main focus of the video being one specific male.
Fully grown bull elk usually stand at five feet tall and weigh anywhere from 700 to 1100 pounds. This particular elk, who looks to have had it “up to its antlers” with all of the tourists, looks to fit the bill for a full grown male. That’s why it becomes so intimidating when it decides to mount an attack on a tourist standing too close nearby.
The massive elk lets out one of its patented wailing bugle noises, almost seeming to be “sounding the alarm” for what he is about to do. It then begins a slow walk in the opposite direction of the incoming traffic, and at some point narrows down on a “touron” standing on the side of the road.
The elk runs right past a couple of people who are standing outside their car (for some reason) and begins to lower its gargantuan antlers towards a man wearing a black hat.
This move scares the ever living daylights out of the guy, who freezes up as he tries to run and falls down onto the asphalt (so all of the horror movies are actually realistic?).
Lucky for the man laying down on the road, the elk holds off on the attack and backs off from him. If I had to guess, this is the equivalent of a parent telling a kid “this is your last warning,” or the other classic parenting tactic of “I’m going to count down from 5…”
The black hatted man gets up and casually walks off, keeping an eye on the elk as he retreats. I absolutely love that the elk doesn’t move one bit, standing tall right where it faked out the man, officially claiming the territory in exclamatory fashion.
Take a look:
Mature Bull Elk Gets Tripped Up By Fence & Tragically Pays Ultimate Price
What a sad sight to see.
Something so gorgeous just absolutely eating it and paying the ultimate price for a simple miscalculation…
This is as crazy as it gets, one of those moments you can’t believe you happened to catch on video. You’re filming something spectacular but fairly common in that of an elk herd running across the countryside when the completely unexpected happens.
Elk are amazing animals, though, which is why this is so heartbreaking. They can weigh up over 1000-pounds, have antlers like no other and are widely known as the tastiest wild animal around. I mean, if you’ve ever bitten into a tender elk backstrap, you know just how magnificent these beasts are.
Their bugle is world-renowned in the outdoors world… one of the coolest noises you can hear in the woods.
A herd of elk is shown running across the fields of what appears to be the American West, perhaps Colorado, Wyoming or Montana. After a bunch of cows make the jump over a fence in pans over to a nice bull running full tilt towards it.
The bull gets to the fence and makes a fairly pathetic jump. It’s back legs get hung up as he is flung forward flipping over. To make matters worse his antlers get lodged into the ground causing his neck to bend very awkwardly.
Utter shock at what we just witnessed…
The elk lays on its back kicking for its life, it kicks and kicks but doesn’t get flipped over. Very quickly it slows its movements down. The initial “he just broke his neck” thoughts are spot on here.
The video ends showing a close-up picture of this gorgeous 6×7 bull that had an extremely unfortunate end to its life.
I mean, what a painful and humbling reminder of how fragile life can be. You evade hunters, vehicles, predators, starvation, climate… everything that can kill an elk, only to get hung up on a fence, trip, and die.
The tragedy of life on full display.
Massive Elk Herd Surrounds Home While Taking A Rest In Colorado Neighborhood
Imagine waking up and going out on the front porch for a morning coffee and seeing every elk that lives in your area sitting right on your front lawn. Seems crazy right?
Well, that’s pretty much what happened here.
Elk in Colorado have the highest population in the world. That means there’s just bound to be human interaction from time to time. And if you’ve ever been in Estes Park, you know they’re EVERYWHERE.
These animals are very gregarious, as they tend to live in herds. Elk herds can often be fairly large with 200-400 individuals traveling around together.
Folks in this Colorado neighborhood learned that in very weird fashion as a whole herd decided to rest right in somebody’s yard all around their house.
People driving by captured footage of the wild occurrence as the elk all lay down around the homes. There is even a massive bull elk seen sitting right at somebody’s front door.
That would certainly be shock to walk outside or come home to. I mean, what are you really going to do? It’s probably not worth trying to shoo away a massive bull elk. The consequences aren’t worth going inside.
This is some wild stuff.
