Mess with the bull elk… and you’ll almost get the antlers.
There’s just something about wild animals and wild idiots crossing paths, eh? The genre of “Person Gets Too Close To Wildlife” videos is practically endless, as more and more people are caught on camera pressing their luck around animals and paying the price. This latest example is out of Estes Park, Colorado.
In case you didn’t know, Estes Park is considered to be the “Elk Capital of the World.” It’s estimated that over 280,000 elk live in Colorado, which is enough to give the state the honor of housing the largest concentrated population of elk in the world. Believe it or not, that many elk bring in tourists from all over the planet, particularly to the Estes Park area.
So it’s practically a guarantee to see elk there if you were to visit, and the people in this video really got a close-up encounter with the area’s elk population. The National Park Service recommends that tourists stay at least 25 yards away from what they call non-dangerous animals (that extends to 50 yards for animals like bears and wolves). This family got about as close as they could to this bull elk that was wandering near a home in the area.
It looks like they stumbled upon the bull walking down the street and the father of the family quickly pulled out his phone to get a picture of the animal, as the family moved up towards the house. Dad apparently has no idea about the “zoom feature” that most modern phones boast. He chose to zoom the old fashioned way, and creeped closer and closer to the elk that was showing visible signs of anger.
When the man overstepped that invisible boundary, the bull elk let him know, and ran right at him. That caused the man – and the rest of the family – to run away as fast as they could. The only problem? The father with his jacket tied around his waist ran out of real estate. All of the sudden, he found himself between a rock (a steep drop off) and a hard place (an angry elk).
This led to an every-man-for-himself situation, which almost got a woman in the group (presumably the mother) gored. The bull elk once again charged, but pulled up just shy of making contact with the female who, if I had to guess, had a word with the green-jacket-guy after all of this.
Fortunately, it looks like everyone came out of this elk encounter unscathed. Long story short, if you were wondering who runs the Estes Park area, it’s still the elk that patrol the area. An account by the name of “Untamed View” shared the video, along with this quippy caption that went ahead and named the patriarch in the video “Greg.” We can’t confirm nor deny that the man’s actual name is Greg… but regardless, don’t be a Greg:
“Did you hear the story? Greg and his family saw a bull elk (in full rut mode)on their vacation and wanted to get a few photos with him.”
