This is what people are hoping to see when they make a trip to Yellowstone National Park.
Throughout the 2 million acres of incredible mountain ranges, canyons, rivers, and geysers lives a population of wildlife that can best be described as America’s Serengeti. Giant herds of buffalo, pronghorn, elk, and bighorn sheep live in tandem with apex predators like bears, mountain lions, wolves, and coyotes. This dynamic creates a delicate balancing act that provides visitors with the best examples of nature at its most raw on the daily.
One of these battles was captured on video by a tourist who had a front row seat to one of the craziest things you can hope to see at Yellowstone.
A large group of people were gathered near a collection of hot springs. These steaming pools can reach boiling temperatures and the steam emitted from vents can reach 235 degrees, making it one of the top attractions in the park.
But it wasn’t just natural landscape that had these tourists gawking. A herd of elk were walking around the area and there was at least one calf with the group. Just that alone would be enough to give you an incredible story, but what happened next kicked it up to a once in a life time experience.
A large bear, presumably a grizzly, took note of the elk and began chasing them throughout the area to get itself a meal. While attempting to snag one, it fell into one of the hot springs and appeared to scald itself, although it shook it off and continued its attack.
The bear ran the elk directly towards the people and the boardwalk fencing they were standing behind, putting them too close for comfort to a man eating animal.
Like most tourists, however, it appeared that no one thought for even a second that the bear may decide the fast running elk were too much of a challenge and set its sights on the slower moving (and more populous) humans.
You can even hear the camera guy make this comment while laughing
“Don’t come this way”
Fortunately, it didn’t make this choice and eventually ran passed the group to continue its pursuit of the calf.
If I had to guess, a bear that determined was not going to come up empty and we’ve seen what that looks like…
Incredible experience for all of these people, I just hope they try and be a bit more cautious around bears in the future.
We do not want to cover the results of a bear attack on people.
