Talk about getting yourself stuck between a rock and a hard place… this tourist was trapped between a charging elk, a tree and tasers.
There’s a whole lot going on in this video out of Estes Park, Colorado, and it’s all because one man got way too close to a mama elk and her newborn calf. If you’ve ever wondered how people get themselves into these types of predicaments, invading the space of a mother animal (whether it be intentional or unintentional) out in the wild is often the explanation.
In case you didn’t know, the Estes Park area is famous for its elk population. 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.
The mountain town acts as a base for the Rocky Mountain National Park, and often times, elk will ditch their natural habitats and traverse and move around the city limits. Herds occasionally take over Estes Park, and the humans that call the town home, or are visiting the area, are often witnesses to great numbers of the antlered creatures roaming freely.
This guy got to play a high stakes game of hide and seek with one elk in particular.
An Instagram account called “Destinations with Drew” posted this video, and actually shared a very detailed story of what went down in the caption of the post. Drew says that the man had gotten too close to a protective mother elk who had apparently delivered a calf into the world the day before:
“We were driving around Estes Park around 11am today and we saw a man really close to an elk. We stopped to see what was going on, and a police officer was pacing near the parking lot. She had an air horn and was using it when it dawned on me, this guy is trapped.
We saw a newborn baby elk (some say we missed the birth by an hour) around this spot last night with a cow elk and the policewoman confirmed that’s what was going on and that it had been going on for about 30 minutes before we got there. Cow elk are EXTREMELY protective over their calves. They can and will stomp you out (and they’re not little) and chase you if you get too close.”
From what the person who took the video says, the man in this footage was not trying to harass the mother elk. We see plenty of tourists walk right up to creatures in the wild like it’s a petting zoo.
According to Drew, that was not the case here. Regardless, the man got himself into a real pickle, and police had to come to try and help alleviate the situation:
“This poor guy was just minding his own business and had no clue about the baby. Cops came, made some taser sounds and threw rocks and that combined with the air horn was enough to get the elk to walk away enough for the man to go with the police. Nobody was hurt, but it was intense for a while.”
That guy has one heck of a story to tell once he gets back to wherever he’s visiting from. Tasers, charging elk, airhorns… he had quite the interesting trip to Estes Park, Colorado.
