One more bison-charging-tourist video before we head into the winter season… and hopefully don’t have as many incidents like this.
Yellowstone National Park is one of the most beautiful, scenic areas in the entire United States (if not the world). So it’s funny that there seems to be a steady stream of ugly, downright stupid content that comes out of the national park. To be clear, Yellowstone isn’t too blame… it’s the people that visit it that are the problem.
Tourists at the uberly popular national park have a knack for putting themselves in harm’s way, which often earns them the nickname of “tourons” (tourists who are morons). This particular “touron” couple seemingly ignored the National Park Service warning signs of staying 25 yards away from bison, and even chose to not listen to those around them informing them that they shouldn’t get so close. For some reason, they felt invincible and tested their luck as they got into the personal space of one of the park’s 2,000 pound beasts.
Wildlife photographer and Yellowstone resident, Julie Argyle, was nearby to capture the whole incident on camera, which took place earlier this year (late May) in Yellowstone’s Hayden Valley area. She told Cowboy State Daily that herself and a multitude of others told the couple to keep their distance, but they acted like they knew what they were doing:
“A number of people told them that wasn’t a good place to be. They heard us and acknowledged that they weren’t listening to us… we definitely made them aware of the bison, and they didn’t really care. One of them put their hand up as if to say, ‘Yeah, we know, whatever.’ We were warning them not to go there, but they made the choice to go there anyway.”
The duo with a death wish continued to do things their own way, and it almost ended in disaster.
As they were attempting to walk away from the bison and back towards the road, the large animal put its head down and charged at the person walking just a few feet behind the individual with a walking stick. Other people nearby screamed, “LOOK OUT!,” as loud as they could to warn the couple that the bison had finally had enough.
It appears that the bison got within inches of goring one of the two people, while the other had a bigger head start on the bison and was more out of harm’s way (but not entirely out of dodge). From everything we know, this was entirely too close of a call, especially when you consider that the couple could have avoided being that close to the bison in the first place.
Argyle wasn’t rooting for the bison to knock down either one of the bozos who decided to dance with danger, but she was a little embittered by the fact that the couple ignored both signs and in-person warnings from nearby park visitors:
“I would never want to see anyone get harmed by a bison. I may be frustrated because they didn’t listen in the first place, but I think human compassion is very important.”
The video has garnered a lot of attention online, mainly because it’s about as close to a bison goring as you can get without anyone actually getting injured. Though it’s a video from back in May, it’s a great reminder during this time of the year – and anytime of the year, for that matter – that you shouldn’t ever approach a wild animal.
Check it out:
