Visitors of Alaska’s Denali National Park and Preserve got up close and personal with a massive moose walking across one of the park’s roads recently, and most National Park Service guidelines would say they were a little too close.
If you were to check out what the NPS advises for tourists (and trust me, a lot of people do not), you would find they suggest that park visitors remain at least 25 yards away from all forms of wildlife. That buffer zone extends to 100 yards (a football field, for those that struggle with visualizing distance) for animals that are more dangerous, like bears, wolves, and other creatures that could, you know, easily kill you.
It should be common sense for people to stay away from wild animals, but as you’ll see in the video below, a lot of tourists like to do the exact opposite. For some reason, people inside national parks immediately (and idiotically) just assume that all of the animals they see are “domesticated” and “harmless.”
That’s obviously not the case, and a lot of people usually pay the price for thinking like that. The people in this video were lucky and didn’t have to run for their lives from the colossal moose, and fortunately were able to observe from mere feet away as the towering animal slowly made its way across the road.
Take a look:
Yeah, that’s simply one of the largest land mammals I’ve ever seen it.
If I were just going by natural instincts, I would not want to get remotely close to that moose. One swing of the antlers with me standing in the wrong place and I’d be in the soup (baseball phrase meaning “in big trouble”).
However, it didn’t look like anyone standing on the road with the giant animal was worried about that, and those in the comment section of the post were quick to call them out about it:
“People are so stupid.”
“Dumb ways to die. Denali National Park isn’t a ‘petting zoo.’ It appears ‘tourons’ of Yellowstone have spread into Alaska.”
“They’re lucky he doesn’t run their ass over.”
“In my opinion, those people need to BACK OFF.”
“Typical idiot tourists, haha.”
