This one is 100% on the parents.
What are you thinking letting your kids handfeed wildlife? Now, I’m not going to say I’ve never tossed some pieces of bread to ducks or tried to give a deer some celery (also not recommended for the health of the animal), but things change quickly when we’re talking about elk.
National Parks are not a petting zoo, regardless of how many tourists like to pretend they are, and a video is starting to spread on the internet which shows the lead up to a horrible moment that happened recently in Rocky Mountain National Park.
The short clip shows a cow elk being fed by a group of tourists, which is obviously a big no-no. Rules state you have to remain at least 75 feet away from elk at all times, and while it hasn’t stopped people from nearly getting themselves killed by these giants in the past, this is yet another example of why you just can’t do it.
The video itself doesn’t show what wound up happening (thankfully) but according to the caption, provided by wildlife photographer Vic Schendel, things went from “Wow, what a great experience” to “Wow, someone’s life will never be the same” in a hurry.
Apparently the cow elk wound up biting the tip of a young boy’s finger clean off, and I’m really hoping it’s not the little baby the man in the middle is carrying; I’m terrible at guessing children’s ages but he can’t be much older than 1. If this dumbass parent really let his son get his finger bite off just to get a “cool” video of him feeding an elk that’s borderline child abuse.
Take a look at the lead up for yourself and try not to get infuriated knowing how it all ended.
“And we wonder why animals hurt people in the National Parks. Just moments after taking this video, the cow elk bit off the end of a young boys finger as he was feeding it.”
At the end of the clip you can see an older, but still very young, boy start walking up to the elk, so maybe it wound up to be the 8ish year old that got his finger chomped, but does that really make it any better?
Can we please stop this madness? Yes, take your family to National Parks and enjoy the great outdoors. Bring binoculars and try to get in viewing distance of all the wildlife you can.
But don’t feed, or pet, or take selfies with the animals. At best you’ll get yelled at online and at worst you’re maimed for life.
