Most of the time when tourists are in the news for being idiots in Yellowstone, it’s during the summer.
That’s because the visitation rate is so much higher, not because people are more intelligent in the winter.
Proof in point: last week in Yellowstone.
A group of snowmobilers ran into a herd of bison and instead of moving away from them, they stopped — thereby blocking the bison from crossing the trail.
If you give the snowmobilers the benefit of the doubt, perhaps they were boxed in. Perhaps the bison came out of nowhere and they couldn’t move or get out of the way.
It’s hard to give them the benefit of the doubt after seeing so many stupid people in Yellowstone, however. Like the woman last summer who thought the Park was a petting zoo and nearly got killed after attempting to pet a bison.
In this video, the visitors sat on their snowmobiles and filmed the frustrated bison, laughing when one of the animals charged a snowmobiler.
Were the snowmobilers worried?
Hard to say. The person who took the video thought it was all “exciting.”
“Exciting day!!!! One in our group got hit by two buffalo fighting, knocking her sled sideways and knocking off the back hand grip. Thank God Lisa was okay and thank God no one was riding with her,” Lisa Long Giles posted on her Facebook page (the video has now been removed but is still present on YouTube).
Later in the day, Giles posted a video of snowmobilers laughing while bison were running away from them. “Stampede!” Giles wrote.
When admonished by one of her friends on Facebook for being so close to the bison, she said “there wasn’t much choice.”
“You can suddenly be surrounded by them in a blink of an eye,” she said.
Calls to the public affairs office at Yellowstone National Park were not immediately returned.
In the past, public information officers have reminded people that bison are dangerous and should be avoided.
“Bison have injured more people in Yellowstone than any other animal. Bison are unpredictable and can run three times faster than humans,” the National Park Service has said in the past. “Always stay at least 25 yards away from bison.”
