If Yellowstone National Park needed a “what not to do” instructional video, this footage of a family getting out and endangering themselves by standing within feet of a bison would be the perfect fit.
Unfortunately, and inexplicably, a new batch of videos like this one surface every single summer. When the weather warms up, the “tourons” (tourists that are morons) flock to national parks and confuse them with large-scale petting zoos. It’s probably safe to say that the worst of it happens at Yellowstone National Park.
Though the National Park Service warns that people should stay at least 25 yards away from bison (and 100 yards away from more dangerous animals), the family in this video decided to get an up-close look at this bison grazing in Yellowstone. And they aren’t the only ones that make this mistake… plenty of others out of the 4.7 million that visit the national park each year do the exact same thing.
Despite there being plenty of signs telling tourists not to, and countless videos online showing what can go wrong if they do.
And hey, national parks are considered to be family friendly, right? This clip proves that families can gather around and be dumb together. Wildlife photographer T. Lyn Neufeld was driving along within the national park and saw a group get out of their car in order to take some photos. Because the photos from the safety of inside the car wouldn’t have come out as clear, I suppose?
At least five tourons exit the vehicle and start taking pictures of the wild animal that’s minding its own business. One younger person even turns their back to the bison for a photo op… which if you didn’t know, is one of the worst things you can do when you are within close proximity of a 2,000 pound animal.
The wildlife photographer that caught the family dumb-handed perfectly explained the idiotic display:
“Good sense is not handed out at the park gates it seems. They were three feet from this bull. You can’t tell people anything.”
Man, if Yellowstone could figure out how to hand out “good sense” upon entry to the park, that would probably save everyone a lot of trouble.
Though that would cut down on videos like these coming out of Yellowstone National Park, and where would social media users leave comments like these if the viral clips went away?
“I’m cheering for the bison.”
“Signs everywhere warn you to stay away.”
“And then they turn their back to him. Seriously?”
“Oh look… a Touron family!”
“Damn, give them some space.”
“After the grandpa toss went pretty viral, you’d think they’d be better informed.”
That’s what I’m saying.
Earlier this summer, one of the park’s bison launched an old man named Carl way up into air for no reason at all, so I figured that would be enough to convince tourists visiting Yellowstone to keep their distance for a while. As we saw in this clip above – which actually and miraculously ended with no one being hurt – people have evidently forgotten about the grandpa getting thrown through the air.
