Darwin barely missed

keh · Sep 10, 2012

On NBC Today show this AM. Bunch of kids got to close to a buffalo at Yellowstone park and got chased, no one hurt. The park has warning signs about not getting close to buffalo, if they are lying down they can get up quickly and are very fast. When I was there I noticed a lot of careless people getting awfully close in an open field to elk. Approaching a 2000 pound animal with huge antlers is not my idea of safety.

The buffalo they showed this morning was not serious about catching anybody, fortunately.

KEH

Greg1959 · Sep 10, 2012

I saw that on youtube. I wonder what their parents were thinking? Why would you let your child get that close.

I remember visiting Yellowstone in the early 90's and they gave you a bundle of papers at the entrance station. Printed on a red sheet of paper was a picture of a buffalo with a warning to stay way back. They could reach bursts of speeds up to 35 mph.

oldtanker · Sep 10, 2012

(quoted from post at 05:25:16 09/10/12)
On NBC Today show this AM. Bunch of kids got to close to a buffalo at Yellowstone park and got chased, no one hurt. The park has warning signs about not getting close to buffalo, if they are lying down they can get up quickly and are very fast. When I was there I noticed a lot of careless people getting awfully close in an open field to elk. Approaching a 2000 pound animal with huge antlers is not my idea of safety.

The buffalo they showed this morning was not serious about catching anybody, fortunately.

KEH

LOL yea you don't want a 1 ton animal tap dancing on ya!

Rick

S.Crum · Sep 10, 2012

Sadly many parents of that generation don't know any better than to challenge a 2000 pound animal. Most are from the "carebear" generation.

fixerupper · Sep 10, 2012

A few years ago at Yellowstone I saw a guy getting up real close to a cow/calf moose pair for a good closeup pic. His car was right in the middle of the road with the driver's door open. Duh! Jim

PJH · Sep 10, 2012

It reminds me of one of my Dad's favorite sayings:

Don't mess with nothin' ya don't know nothin' about.

Chip812 · Sep 10, 2012

Reminds me of the time I (and the family) drove through Cades Cove (in the Smokey Mountains) and I saw people in flip-flops and shorts chasing a mommy bear and her cub through the woods... Good thing mommy bear and cub were able to move through the woods faster than the photo-hungry tourists.

dhermesc · Sep 10, 2012

That includes humans.

Jim Croce line:

Learned a lesson about messin with people strange to ya.

Errin OH · Sep 10, 2012

What we're they thinking?

Probably "How cute".

About a dozen of us watched a guy take a small child (4-6) out to an Elk bull laying in the brush and poise him for a picture. Maybe 30' from him. We all had visions of the both of them getting stomped to death. Elk was obliviously distressed and just about everyone was trying to get him to back off as quietly as we could. No idea where his wife was. If she was there she wasn't defending him.....

dgasper · Sep 10, 2012

On our last trip to Yellowstone we saw a German tourist with camera in one hand run up to a big old bison and swat him on the a$$ with the other hand. I guess stupidity isn't limited by national borders.

wisbaker · Sep 10, 2012

My Dad always claimed these animal planet TV shows and the older Disney shows promoted a general lack of respect for wildlife, don't think that PETA with their attitude portraying all animals as being kind and caring has helped any. The personification of animals in children's stories is not helping either. If course the diminishing amount of people that are involved with farm animals also means a lot fewer people understand how much hurt a 500 pound animal can put on you in just a few minutes. Or to put it another way "if it's several times your size don't make it mad"

Thomas(AB) · Sep 10, 2012

we were talking about this at work this morning-tourists in Jasper National park, stopping on the highway blocking traffic, just to get out and chase the elk herd around. Just waiting for the headline one day "Man trampled by Elk herd, while trying to get picture"

bison · Sep 10, 2012

(quoted from post at 09:06:40 09/10/12) On our last trip to Yellowstone we saw a German tourist with camera in one hand run up to a big old bison and swat him on the a$$ with the other hand. I guess stupidity isn't limited by national borders.

Unless that old bull was stone dead,..I call BS on that one.
The guy would not have lived if he had laid his hand on one wild buffalo.

showcrop · Sep 10, 2012

A few years back I went snowmobiling at Yellowstone. The buffalo there like to use the roadways that are snowmobile trails in the winter, so when you see them you are supposed to pull to the right and stop until they leave the trail or go by. It is against the rules to leave the packed trail. So you sit there waiting for them and it is not usually a problem as the trails are mostly about thirty feet wide. One time however as we were waiting for a group that was coming towards us, one of them decided that he wanted to get on the sled with me. I wasn't really comfortable with him being closer than ten feet, so I shifted my camera to my left hand, then hit the shutter/flash which caused him to stop, and squeezed the throttle with my right and took off. Let him hitch a ride with someone else.

dgasper · Sep 10, 2012

With a handle like bison you can call BS all you want. I was there, I saw it. There were a lot of bison there but I don't remember seeing you.

bison · Sep 10, 2012

(quoted from post at 15:09:22 09/10/12) With a handle like bison you can call BS all you want. I was there, I saw it. There were a lot of bison there but I don't remember seeing you.

eah,its hard to admit a tall BS story for what it is eh, mebbe leave the beer alone next time :roll:

I can garantie you there is no way in"ell you can sneak up(let alone run) to a wild bison bull without him run or switching ends in a heartbeat.
If you could(i said could cause it is highly unlikely you can) slap him on the a$$ you would have 1 or both rear hooves implanted in your skull or chest 3 times in succesion before you even realize what happened, that is if you live to tell it, if that's case, you might think he hit you only once.

I make my living raising bison and know fully well how they react when startled or cornered.

Russ from MN · Sep 10, 2012

They haven't had any wild animals in Germany for so long they don't understand what can happen. There was an experienced hiker in Alaska recently that was taking pictures of a grizzly bear as it got closer, they found parts of him in the bears stomach! The one I like the best is the sign in Yosemite: don't feed human food to the wild animals, it will make them fat and their hair will fall out! Look around you at Walmart!

dgasper · Sep 10, 2012

Like I said you can call BS all you want because I was there and you weren't.

dgasper · Sep 10, 2012

bison - so do any of these kids - and adults - get killed?
Call BS on this one

bison · Sep 10, 2012

Hmm,..looks like these bison are used to people milling around them,so there is prob truth in your story after all.
I know my bison won't be that lenient if some idiot would enter the pasture on foot and try to pat them.

Bret4207 · Sep 11, 2012

I grew up int he Central Adirondacks. Back in the day we used have dumps and all the dumps were filled with bears. Every summer night the dump would like like a drive movie theater with all the citiots and tourists in their lawn chairs waiting for the bears to come out at dusk. Every week we'd see these morons hand feeding the bears, trying to put their kids on the bears back and get a picture, stuff like that. Black bears aren't particularly nasty animals, but still...the stupidity displayed was staggering.

Darwin barely missed

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