This is what people call “a near death experience” in my neck of the woods. It still blows my mind that people are willing to risk their health/life for a cool pic with a wild animal. And I can almost understand why people want to pet a bison (I said almost). They look like big, fluffy cows… but an elk? It literally has big, long spikes on its head… in plain view. They’re right there, and it’s not too hard to figure out what they probably use them for… STABBING things.
But what people fail to realize is that most of the time, these wild animals are more scared of you than you are of them, and they’re gonna do one of two things if you approach them… either run away, or protect their ground. And if they feel threatened and protect their ground… you lose that battle.
We’ve seen countless examples of this, especially at National Parks that have very clear rules of staying at least 25 yards away from wildlife, but people still fail to follow them.
With that being said, here’s yet another example.
This one all went down in Estes Park, Colorado. Now I have to admit, the amount of videos I’ve seen of wild animals roaming around in heavily populated areas in Estes Park is nothing short of breathtaking, and I definitely need to add a trip to my bucket list. If you’re not familiar, elk walk around that part of Colorado (about an hour and a half from downtown Denver at the base of Rocky Mountain National Park) like squirrels walk around the rest of the country. Just a massive population of elk roaming around a town with about 6,000 residents, and many more visiting tourists.
One clueless tourist in the area took things a bit too far, and she nearly paid a MASSIVE price for it.
In the video, you can see the woman approach a bull elk, trying to get a picture. Once she only gets a few feet away, she turns her back to the beast (are you trying to die?) and things almost go south real quick when the elk lowers its antlers, and nearly sends them through the woman’s head.
Seriously, there was only a few inches between the woman and the bull’s antlers, but lucky enough for her, it was only a bluff to scare her away. Let this video be a warning to anybody else who gets the temptation to get up close and personal with wildlife for a cool picture. This scene could’ve easily turned ugly. Just imagine the selfie you’d get to take from a hospital bed…
Check it out:
