Do people that visit national parks have a death wish?
That’s the only explanation that makes sense to me, considering that these types of videos seemingly come out every single week. I feel like the National Park Service does a pretty good job of warning people to stay away from wild animals, but they’ll eventually just have to put up big, flashing signs every 25 yards saying:
“Don’t be stupid and use common sense!”
I don’t even know if that would help with the “touron” epidemic that seems to be sweeping the country, and seems to be at its worst in national parks.
It’s possible that people enjoy doing things like this so they show up on Whiskey Riff’s outdoors page. If that’s the reasoning behind all of this, good job, because it’s working (but also bad job, stop messing with animals).
In this clip from Mount Rainier National Park, a black bear is minding its own business by the side of the road when people start to confuse the national park for a petting zoo.
I’m assuming that (somehow) these people walking up to the black bear don’t realize that bears are considering apex predators, and though they aren’t overly aggressive towards humans, they can be if they are provoked.
This footage could probably be considered a textbook example of provoking, since you see many people walking right up to it and crowding it, individuals taking pictures and selfies with the bruin, and a mom even jogging towards the bear with her kids. Yeah, you read that right…
“Tourons of National Parks” posted the clip, which is a wonderful follow on social media, along with their sister account “Tourons of Yellowstone.” And “touron” is just a combination of the two words tourist and moron, in case you were wondering.
The caption on this horrifying video states:
“This bear was on the side of the road and people were running up, across the road, and then standing 5 to 10 feet away to take pictures.
There was even a lady who hustled across the road with her two kids, one of whom was eating an apple, to get a picture with it.
Fortunately, a park ranger came by and got everybody out of the road and into the small parking area, but still too close.”
