Rocky Mountain National Park is home to over 60 different mammals, and after seeing this video, at least one moose that has it out for old women.
Wild animals don’t discriminate. They’ll happily attack small children and send them flying up into the air, just as they’ll put a scare in elderly tourists. The common denominator with most of those incidents is that the people, young and old, got too close to the wild animals.
The National Park Service is very close to having to post signs and billboards all over the place with their guidance on approaching wild animals. Even then, I still think we’d see tourists waltzing right up to the wildlife like they are visiting a petting zoo.
In case you didn’t know, the NPS advises tourists to stay 100 yards away from more dangerous animals like bears and wolves, and 25 yards away from less volatile wildlife like bison and elk. Moose (or is it meese? still not sure) also fall into that 25 yard range, and this video below from Rocky Mountain National Park is the perfect “what not to do” example of that guidance.
This footage was captured in the Grand Lake area of the national park and showed what happens when you get too close to the wildlife. One grandma got a little too comfortable being near a moose standing in the park, and that very moose decided to enforce the 25 yard buffer zone itself.
The moose charges the lady, who turns on her top speed and barely (and I mean BARELY) avoided a swing of the hoof from the large wild animal. If she would have been even a step slower, she might have had a hoof mark in her back as a battle scar.
Instead, she idiotically got too close and was lucky enough to be spared by the aggressive moose. And remember, the moose was only angered because its personal space of 25 yards was violated. Let me remind you that the 25-yard warning isn’t for the safety of the wild animals…it’s for the safety of the people who are brave dumb enough to press their luck.
Like this woman in Rocky Mountain National Park:
