Drive-through zoos are a great way to get kids up close and personal to some “wild” animals they otherwise wouldn’t have the chance to see, and even though I put wild in quotations back there since most of them have been desensitized to the idea of predation, it doesn’t mean these glorified farm animals are any less dangerous.
At this point we’ve all see the videos from Yellowstone National Park. You know, the ones where some touron (tourist moron) decides it’s okay to pet a bison despite a slew of signs and park ranger warnings that say the opposite and they wind up getting thrown into a tree or nearly stomped into a million little pieces. These 2,000 plus pound creatures are not to be messed with and anyone with a brain could tell you that, but unfortunately in America, there’s more than a few people who seem to lack the vital organ that should be housed in your cranium.
Example A: The parents of this poor young kid visiting a drive-thru zoo in Chittenango, New York.
A video taken by people in the car behind them captured the entire thing and here’s a warning to anyone with a queasy stomach, it looks and sounds pretty bad.
A giant bison (I guess they’re all pretty giant) is doing what all the animals were doing that day; meandering around and being fed by the humans driving through the park. I’ve gone to these drive-through zoos before and they’re really cool but one thing that’s stressed over and over again is to keep yourself fully inside the vehicle at all times.
Sure, you hand leaves for a few seconds while you pour food pellets down some mammals throat but from the second my wife and I got there to the second we drove out, we saw signs and warnings on brochures to stay inside the vehicle. I guess these parents thought those rules didn’t apply to their perfect little angels because as you can see in the clip, there’s two kids hanging out the rear driver side window.
The bison approaches and all seems to be okay until it’s not. In the blink of an eye and a flick of its head, the bison drives its horns upwards, striking a poor kid under the chin violently, which in turn cracked the back of his head off the window frame.
Again, it’s a tough look so be careful watching unless you’re ready.
Fortunately, and somehow, we were told the boy was just fine. Guess it’s true when they say kids are made out of rubber…
Michael Benny, a reporter for CBS5 out of Syracuse, reported the zoo removed this particular bison and that it wasn’t their first incident. They had previously been sued by the city for operating without a proper permit and apparently an animal had previously rammed another car full of kids.
Now, there’s always going to be some danger when you willingly go to feed bison, emu, elk, and whatever other creatures they had there, so you can’t really say anything on that front. But the park does need to gets its ducks in a row and at least make sure it’s got proper permitting.
Really thankful that kid is okay and it goes without saying that, if you’re going to take your children to one of these parks can you please, for the love of God, keep them inside the car? We don’t need to see a repeat of this ever again.
