These are tourists  (“Guests” as we are told to call them).  They come to Yellowstone in droves (3.2 million last year).  This weekend will be the busiest weekend of the year.  Many of them are very nice people.  Unfortunately, as the ranger said, some of them tend to leave their brains at home when they go on vacation.  They ask stupid questions (such as “can I have the geyser predictions for tomorrow…or the rest of the week”  when it’s hard to predict a geyser more than two hours in advance). We could make a “top 100” list of stupid questions visitors ask.  (and, of course, they come without doing any research and are surprised when the temperature goes down to 45 at night–and all they brought was a pair of short-shorts and a spaghetti strap top.).  They also question the truth that geysers and thermal areas are dangerous….there were a couple of unsupervised 10-12 year olds playing on the geyser field the other night.  I want to sit them down and tell them the story of Andy Hecht or make their parents read Death in Yellowstone, all 240 pages!  (watch the brief video here).  Not to mention that the opening that makes Old Faithful work is only 4.5 inches  once you get down 20 feet–and almost anything dropped down it has the potential to change it permanently

This, as you have heard before, is a bison.  Note the VERY large horns (VERY VERY large horns).  Note the size (up to 2,000 pounds) Note the continually ornery expression.  Note that bison OWN the park.

When a bison approaches you ( as it is doing here) you should slowly move AWAY from the animal,  not stop and try to take it’s picture (sigh).

So…here are the animal adventures for this past week in the park.

-A group of folks on the Fairy Falls trail were approached by a bison;  rather than doing the smart thing and moving away, they stood still and let the bison come quite close.  At that point (from seeing the pictures) it looks like one of them actually tried to pet the bison….needless to say the bison wasn’t very happy and knocked the woman to the ground.  He then stood there over her glaring at her for about 5 minutes.  That is one very lucky visitor.  She’s lucky he didn’t use that very large horn on her.

-Four days later; same trail.  You’ve all seen those big wooden park signs, right?  A group of folks apparently decided that the park sign was enough protection to get close to a bison and ended up playing “ring around the rosie” around the sign as they tried to take pictures of the bison.  Clearly they were totally unaware that, with one flick on his horn a bison can flick those signs right out of the ground.   Far too many visitors think that the park is as safe and controlled as a zoo, or even a petting zoo.  Yellowstone is NOT a zoo!

These groups were lucky;  no one was hurt.  On sadder notes, a young black bear was killed in a hit-and-run near Mammoth and the park service had to capture and euthanize a black bear that had become too friendly with people.  Late last week it entered a tent  (apparently the occupant of the tent thought that granola bars weren’t enough to tempt the bear).  This wasn’t the bears first run-in with people…but I blame visitors for the final result.  They think “it won’t hurt to give the bird/squirrel/coyote/deer/elk/bear one little piece of food”….but that one little piece of food teaches the bear that humans have good things to eat…and then, inevitably, the animals looks for more human interaction.  On an average year more than 100 animals die as a result of human interactions.

This weekend is the Fourth of July–

It will be weird not seeing fireworks on Sunday…it always reminds me of the days just before my youngest son was born (we went down to the fireworks on the mall with some faint hope that it might induce labor–no such luck).  As today, he does things on his own time and on his own schedule–and I’m extremely proud of him (as I am of both my sons–they are wonderful people).

I’m looking forward to seeing everyone’s pictures and reading your stories.

With that said–be safe, have a wonderful time, and celebrate the fact that we are the originators of the concept of National Parks..something of which Americans should definitely be proud.