Bison Calf’s Death Shows Dangers of People in Yellowstone
This bison calf was
euthanized after its herd refused to accept it. Visitors to Yellowstone
had placed it in their car and driven it to rangers, thinking it looked
cold.
Photograph by Karen Richardson
Photograph by Karen Richardson
Yellowstone National Park rangers
have contended with their share of notorious human misbehavior over the
years, whether it’s guests vandalizing the fragile geothermal wonders,
poachers killing trophy elk, illegal inner-tubers being swept away in
the raging Yellowstone River, or overzealous animal lovers harassing
wildlife, sometimes with deadly consequences.
As Rick Wallen says, few things tourists do are surprising, yet
within the last week Yellowstone’s senior bison scientist learned of an
incident that left even him speechless.
A pair of international travelers making their way through the
wildlife-rich Lamar Valley in early May was arrested and ticketed after
they allegedly caught a wild newborn bison calf from the roadside,
loaded the animal into their vehicle and drove it to a ranger station.
The motivation for their brazen action: They believed they were being
Good Samaritans, rescuing the bison because it appeared to be abandoned
and shivering in the cold.
Tragically, the calf was euthanized May 10 after park biologists
tried numerous times to reunite the snatched buffalo with its herd but
the youngster was rejected, some speculate, precisely because of its
handling by people.
So far in 2016, a spate of similar outlandish tourist incidents with
animals has put park officials on edge. One video posted on Facebook
showed a woman petting a clearly agitated bison along the boardwalks
near Old Faithful Geyser. At another venue, a group of visitors tried to
pose for selfies with bison only inches away from the startled one-ton
beasts.
As America’s iconic nature preserve braces for record numbers of
visitors, Yellowstone took the unusual step this week of issuing a press
release that encourages the masses to keep their distance and mind
their manners.
“We see the need for a call to action. We’re already having problems
and the busy summer season hasn’t even begun,” park spokeswoman Morgan
Warthin says. “Visitors need to know the safety regulations and respect
the wildlife they are coming to see. The well-being of these animals
depends on visitors exercising good judgement.”
Last year five visitors were seriously injured when they approached
bison. In fact, more people have been harmed by bison during the last
decade than grizzly bears. (Read more about problems in Yellowstone.)
Stupid Human Tricks
As Warthin’s boss, Yellowstone Superintendent Dan Wenk says the
biggest challenge isn’t managing bruins, bison and elk, but keeping
uninformed people from bumbling into trouble.
“The last couple of years there’ve been a lot more people, especially
people associated with bus tour groups, invading the spaces of
wildlife,” Wallen says. “I attribute some of the aggressive behavior to
the impact of social media and the selfie craze where visitors try to
get pictures of themselves standing as close to big animals as possible.
They don’t realize the serious risks they’re taking. They’re setting
themselves up to be candidates for a Darwin Award.”
Darwin Awards, offered as
feats of dubious distinction, are given in honor of individuals who do
stupid or ill-advised things that remove themselves from the human gene
pool. Many suffer death caused by misadventure or bad judgment. (See the park's "bear bathtub.")
In 2015, Yellowstone notched more than four million visits for the
first time in the park’s 144-year history, up 17 percent from the year
before. An even larger increase occurred in tour bus visitation, which
has doubled in the last five years. One of the largest demographic
groups is mainland Chinese.
Park officials said that some buses ferrying Chinese visitors last
year caused problems with passengers rushing to make contact with
wildlife and trampling geothermal features. Mayhem prompted Wenk in
March to draft a letter to 85 different tour operators warning tour
leaders that their clients are expected to obey codes of conduct.
Visitors are required to maintain at least a 25-yard (23-meter)
distance from bison, elk, and other animals, and at least a hundred
yards (91 meters) from bears and wolves. Yellowstone has prepared
“safety cards,” spelling out the rules of wildlife watching, in English,
Spanish, and Mandarin and has asked that they be prominently displayed
in buses.
Some busloads of passengers did not use restroom facilities. “I was
shocked to get reports last year of bus drivers passing out toilet paper
and allowing their passengers to go into the forest,” Wenk writes.
For the first time ever, Yellowstone has hired a full-time social
scientist whose job, in part, will be to help educate visitors about
what is expected when they enter the park.
Few are more familiar with the consequences of bad tourist behavior
than Yellowstone historian Lee Whittlesey, author of the best-selling
book, Death in Yellowstone: Accidents and Foolhardiness in the First National Park.
The tome chronicles nearly 300 human fatalities ranging from bear
maulings and bison gorings to people scalded in hot springs, falling off
cliffs, being struck by lightning, and eating poisonous plants.
“People come here wide-eyed and excited but they don’t read the signs
and don’t listen to the cautionary messages of rangers,” he says. “The
first animals they see they go crazy. All four doors on the vehicle fly
open or the bus stops and they fly out chasing the animals. Not good.”
He has concern for the safety of people but he sympathizes with the startled park animals.
“For a lot of visitors, this is an alien environment because so much
of the rest of the country, so much of the rest of the world where they
come from, is manicured, manipulated, tamed and artificial. Their idea
of a park is Disneyland,” he says.
Yellowstone, with more grizzlies, wolves, and bison on the landscape
than a century ago, demands a different kind of thinking, one that is
explored in David Quammen’s cover story for the special May 2016 Yellowstone issue of National Geographic magazine.
“It’s not our job to control what the animals do,” Whittlesey says.
“If we did that, this place wouldn’t be wild. Yellowstone isn’t a zoo.
You can get hurt. We have big animals that can kill or eat you.”
In recent days, some have speculated that maybe the bison calf
plucked from the roadside could have already been abandoned by its
mother. Wallen says it’s certainly possible but more likely its mother
was nearby out of sight. If that were the case the park visitors were
lucky she wasn’t in closer range or they might have taken a horn in the
side.
After the calf was euthanized some on social media criticized Yellowstone for ending its life.
“People don’t like to see animals die but the reality is that if the
calf had been re-released it probably would have lasted 15 minutes
before a wolf, coyote, or bear preyed on it,” Wallen says, noting that
the park would then have been ridiculed by some for not intervening to
prevent the harsh reality of nature from taking its course. (Learn more about bison, our national mammal.)
Wildlife Isn’t Yellowstone’s Only Danger
On Monday a group of young Canadian filmmakers came under investigation after they brazenly hiked off the boardwalks
at Grand Prismatic Spring, Yellowstone’s largest and most spectacular
colorful hot spring that contains sensitive crusts and organisms
specially adapted to its superheated water.
Two years ago, a Dutch tourist was fined a thousand dollars and had
to pay another $2,200 in restitution after he crashed a drone into Grand
Prismatic. The remote-controlled aircraft sunk into the rainbow-hued
pool, prompting geologists to worry that the wreckage could harm the
natural marvel by plugging its vents. Months before that, a German
visitor flying a drone was fined and a tourist from Oregon was also
cited. It prompted Yellowstone to order all drones grounded.
Fortunately, it is the exhibitionist behavior of some park visitors
who post their misdeeds on social media that allows officials to become
aware of their transgressions.
“I don’t want to sound harsh, but the march of stupidity carries on
and most of the time it’s not owed to maliciousness but ignorance,”
Whittlesey says. “This isn’t a place that always forgives people doing
dumb things.”
For bison biologist Wallen, he’s seen plenty of videos where bison
decide they’ve had enough. He always knows there’s trouble brewing when
the big ungulates get an incensed look in their big eyes and their tails
start snapping.
“We’re glad people are passionate about this place and enjoy it as
much as they do,” he says. “At the same time, there are a lot of people
out there in the world who came to Yellowstone and were lucky they
didn’t get hurt. We want the park to be safe for the animals who live
here, too.” (See why Yellowstone's grizzlies shouldn't be hunted, says the author.)
Todd Wilkinson, who has covered grizzlies for 30 years, is author of Grizzlies of Pilgrim Creek. Follow him on Twitter.
end quote:
This is what happens when visitors from big cities with no knowledge of what they are looking at get involved. The reason the bison was rejected by the herd is it either smelled like people or the car it was in and smell is the deciding factor. Only if the smell is right will the bison (buffalo) or birds accept their young back all over the U.S.
end quote:
This is what happens when visitors from big cities with no knowledge of what they are looking at get involved. The reason the bison was rejected by the herd is it either smelled like people or the car it was in and smell is the deciding factor. Only if the smell is right will the bison (buffalo) or birds accept their young back all over the U.S.
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