Idaho Falls resident Don Johnson captured a serious violation of Yellowstone National Park rules when he unintentionally got video of a drone harassing a mother grizzly and her two cubs.
Johnson was in a crowd watching Beryl, a famous mother grizzly, and her two cubs around 6:34 p.m. on May 14. The trio was wandering around Grizzly Lake in the northwest corner of Yellowstone between Mammoth Hot Springs and Roaring Mountain.
As he filmed their interactions with his iPhone, he captured something else: a white quadcopter drone buzzing the animals, flying so close to the grizzlies that they could have reared up and swatted it out of the air.
“I didn’t even notice the drone at the time,” Johnson told Cowboy State Daily. “I didn't pay any attention to it until I heard a ranger yell out something about a drone, and by then I was done filming."
By the time Johnson was aware of the drone, dozens of people who had also stopped to watch the grizzlies had noticed it.
And they weren’t happy.
“Everybody was madder than hell,” Johnson said. “If anybody caught them, they'd probably have strung them up.”
Johnson posted the video of the incident on Facebook, where it’s been viewed more than 30,000 times.
“It should be illegal, and there should be a huge fine for doing it,” he said.
There is.
No Fly Zone
Flying drones in Yellowstone National Park, or any national park, is illegal.
The National Park Service (NPS) categorizes drones as “uncrewed aircraft,” and they are completely prohibited within the boundaries of every NPS site.
Piloting a private drone without authorization is a misdemeanor offense, carrying a maximum penalty of six months in jail and/or a $5,000 fine.
As soon as drones became commercially available, they became an immediate liability in Yellowstone.
On Aug. 2, 2014, Theodorus Van Vliet from the Netherlands was piloting a drone over Grand Prismatic Spring when it unexpectedly crashed into the pool itself. Rangers attempted to locate and remove the drone but were never able to find it.
Van Vilet was cited and paid $1,000 in fines and $2,200 in restitution.
That incident happened two months after the NPS banned private drones in all national parks.
Twelve years later, one would think that drones being banned in Yellowstone was common knowledge. This incident proves otherwise.
Harassment
On June 5, 2025, a tourist was cited for flying a drone dangerously close to an osprey nest in Lamar Valley.
Vince Botkin, who witnessed the incident, told Cowboy State Daily it was “the most flagrant violation I have ever seen.”
“They were tidying up their nest,” he said at the time. “The next thing you know, you see both of the osprey look up and then take off in a panic.”
Botkin found and confronted the drone’s operator, taking several pictures of him and his vehicle to ensure he wouldn’t get away with it. The culprit told Botkin to “go mind my own business.”
“He hovered (the drone) right above my head, like he was trying to intimidate me,” Botkin said. “I launched my hat at the drone but missed.”
NPS spokesperson Linda Veress confirmed that the drone’s operator was found and cited. He was never publicly identified.
As for the osprey, Botkin confirmed that both ospreys had returned to their nest by the next day and didn’t seem majorly miffed by the incident.
Johnson said the grizzlies he was watching two weeks ago didn’t seem to take much notice of the drone hovering extremely close to them. They were preoccupied with another grizzly that was nearby.
“They were a little bit perturbed, but I think they were paying more attention to that other bear that was walking towards them,” he said.
Johnson didn’t see whoever was flying the drone, as they were “around the corner and behind the hill.”
That, at least, is where he and everyone else saw the drone disappear when it, presumably, returned to whoever was piloting it.
“I wish I’d caught them,” he said.
Unidentified Foreign Object?
Cowboy State Daily attempted to reach Yellowstone National Park to see if it was aware of the May 14 drone incident. Officials had not responded by the time of publication.
Veress sent an email to SFGate saying the park “does not have a report of this incident.”
Wildlife photographer Karin Occhialini said information on the drone appeared on RedNote, a Chinese social networking and e-commerce app.
“The drone video showed up on RedNote, a massive Chinese media platform,” she said in a comment on Johnson’s video. “There were a number of comments, and the post was removed, but not before being screenshotted. Hopefully, whoever has the screenshot will turn it in.”
Johnson hasn’t shared his video with the NPS, as all it would do is confirm there was an illegal drone harassing Beryl and her cubs. That wouldn’t confirm the operator’s identity.
Johnson said the response to his video has been universally angry. Nobody was happy to see a drone in Yellowstone, let alone one so close to a grizzly.
“You got some people wanting to ban the tourists, but most people didn't say much except that they hope they get caught,” he said.
Others were waiting for the culprits to expose themselves. They felt it was only a matter of time before the video showed up on social media, which could lead to identification and citation.
Good Luck For Bad Luck
As of Thursday, Johnson’s video of the May 14 drone incident has been viewed over 34,000 times.
“I don’t even know that many people,” he said.
But that’s not his most-viewed video. That was one he filmed later that week, when an NPS ranger hazed a grizzly away from a bear jam by firing a shotgun into the air.
Johnson and his wife, Cindy, try to get into Yellowstone as often as they can, usually on the weekends. He regularly shares everything interesting he sees, and mid-May was a good time and place to see some out-of-the-ordinary moments.
“We always seem to get pretty lucky when we get in there,” he said.
Beryl and her cubs, meanwhile, have not been affected by their drone fly-by and are still highly visible to the tourists who respect Yellowstone’s rules on safe distancing and no drones.
Andrew Rossi can be reached at arossi@cowboystatedaily.com.
