Buffalowned!

Griz gotta be good for something; Annoying Brat Disposal seems about right.

The bear = Boo Boo headline joke was almost as funny as when it was used yesterday!!!

Get some new material, you hack! What, are you the Carlos Mencia of headline jokes!?!?!!!

At least it was educational, they now know three more things: 1 The signs are put there for a reason. 2 Wild animals are just that, wild. 3 The difference between near 2' and far 75'.

There are signs all over the park warning that bison are dangerous and temperamental, that they can run faster than olympic sprinters, and etc., etc., etc. Not everyone's John Muir, but to be this big of a moran illiteracy helps.

That, or a firm belief the park service is funnin' you.

I can see the redneck parents now... "Hunny..git closer to the deer fer a picture!"

I had a friend who got his car door smashed in by an angry bison at Yellowstone. It apparently didn't want its picture taken.

Every summer it seems I hear of at least one incident where some child was maimed because their parents thought it would be cute to get a picture of them with a bear. In one instance, a father coated his daughters hand with honey so that the bear would gently lick it off (at least, that was the idea).

Obviously we must remove all animals from national parks. They are child predators!

At Yellowstone, you see people approach and stand next to bison all the time, including standing between mother and juvenile bison. And yes, the Park Service does everything but come up to you with a megaphone and yell "Stay away from the bison, dumbass!!!", but people keep doing it.

Bison burgers for lunch.

/Much better than beef.

knucklebreather: Obviously we must remove all animals from national parks. They are child predators!

This wouldn't be a problem if we released more children into the parks for them to feed on.

Hey Boo Boo!

Charles Darwin heartily approves and so do I. Only problem I have is that they are darwining their kids, not themselves. I often have to cross close to cows in my backpacking and I don't even like to get close to them.

Animals are not fuzzy people. A large part of the problem is that our culture tends to anthropormorphize them. If given the chance, they will kill you and/or eat you.

When I volunteered at the zoo and talked to the staff, I quickly learned that it was people like this who made the keepers hate the public. Idiots who would feed the animals and go over the safety barriers despite the big signs saying explicitly not to do so.

Their main concept of animals seems to be limited to the ones with funny voices and entertainment deals with Disney, Warner Bros. and Hanna-Barbara.

Starting with "the baby boomer" generation, people have moved away from living in "the coutry" and been educated (from infancy) that animals are cute and lovable. Walt Disney is to blame for this, as all his animated movies have involved sweet and cuddly wild animals. Remember, the classics, such as "Bambi" and "The Jungle Book" were released every 7 years, so there was always a fresh new crop of children to see them.

That said, when a family is this stupid they should all be spayed and neutered. I recall several instances such as the one brewssuds mentioned, not to mention the assholes last year who were taunting the tiger at the San Fran zoo. I always cheer for the animals in cases such as this.

3_Butt_Cheeks: I can see the redneck parents now... "Hunny..git closer to the deer fer a picture!"

I can actually see this as a situation where the rednecks might actually know better than most people what these animals are capable of when they decide to nom on your head. Your scenario seems more likely for fat suburban parents that have only seen wild animals on TV.

People in Yellowstone certainly seem to think they're in a nice safe zoo and that bison are just fuzzy cattle. There's a reason for the 25 yard rule.

I was hiking just this year in the Black Canyon there, where the bison are noticeably more skittish than down by the hotels, and was forced by a narrow spot in the canyon to try to circle around a bull only 20 yards. He wasn't happy and chased us off. They're big and used to predators.

Wow. It's amazing how dense some people are. Maybe they'll check and see if the hot springs really are HOT (that does happen).


Park rules require visitors to remain at least 100 yards from bears or wolves, and at least 25 yards from all other animals.

Funny they mention wolves instead of moose. Wolves never come within even 300 yards of people. They are incredibly scared of humans. Moose on the other hand. . .

Haha....man, does this strike home.

I was in Yellowstone when I was about 8, with my family. There were two large bison standing outside one of the restrooms in this picnic area. People were gathered around in a large circle taking pics. I wanted to go see them, but my dad grabbed me by my shirt and told me no way---said they were really mean and dangerous, and he's seen bison attack before. I was kinda pissed, 'cause everyone else got to go close.

My parents didn't tell me til I was 15 or so, but the next morning, they grabbed a local paper at the diner we'd picked for breakfast. Apparently, three people were horribly injured by those bison about 20min after we'd left the area.

/has a smart daddy

He's damn lucky. About 25 years ago a french guy was getting his picture taken by his wife. The buffalo gored him in the stomach and threw him about 25 feet in the air. When he landed the bison flattened him a few more times with it's head. He died about 10 days later with infection complications due to the puncture wounds in his intestines. It never ceases to amaze me. Once I saw a gaggle of Japenese tear off into thick low brush with their tripods and cameras to take a picture of a grizz. Just about the worse place to encounter a grizz is that type of terrain.
However the number one animal to injure kids is usually chipmunks from kids feeding them by hand.
For severe injuries moose and bison top the list by far over grizz.

Lee451: that animals are cute and lovable. Walt Disney is to blame for this, as all his animated movies have involved sweet and cuddly wild animals. Remember, the classics, such as "Bambi" and "The Jungle Book" were released every 7 years, so there was always a fresh new crop of children to see them.

That said, when a family is this stupid they should all be spayed and neutered. I recall several instances such as the one brewssuds mentioned, not to mention the assholes last year who were taunting the tiger at the San Fran zoo. I always cheer for the animals in cases such as this.

yes because talking animals are so common.

/awaits the requisite lawsuit

ThrnPhl: Wow. It's amazing how dense some people are. Maybe they'll check and see if the hot springs really are HOT (that does happen).


Park rules require visitors to remain at least 100 yards from bears or wolves, and at least 25 yards from all other animals.

Funny they mention wolves instead of moose. Wolves never come within even 300 yards of people. They are incredibly scared of humans. Moose on the other hand. . .

Yeah I almost forgot about the California guy who let Fifi out by the hot springs. Fifi took the plunge and started yelping...(190deg.F water at 2.5 pH). So the guy did the right thing and jumped in to save Fifi. He lived for a few days in the burn center down in Salt Lake with 2nd and 3rd degree burns over 98%of his body. Which means the bald spot on his head was OK.

Eckyhade: Yeah I almost forgot about the California guy who let Fifi out by the hot springs. Fifi took the plunge and started yelping...(190deg.F water at 2.5 pH). So the guy did the right thing and jumped in to save Fifi. He lived for a few days in the burn center down in Salt Lake with 2nd and 3rd degree burns over 98%of his body. Which means the bald spot on his head was OK.

Ha. I used to tell people that story on my tours (I was a tour guide one summer). There was a kid back in the 70's (if I remember correctly) that jumped right into one too. Then later in the summer I was able to tell people about three park employees that died 1-2 days after "falling" into one. (Long story that hit close to home. The shortened version is that they went to a popular swimming spot in the Firehole at dusk. . .).

At this very moment I am eating bison sirloin.

My family and I stopped to check the overhead load on the pickup in Yellowstone along side the road at a nice big meadow. We kids were scrambling around, looking out towards the meadow from the road. Three minutes later, about a dozen cars had stopped to see what we were looking at in the meadow (nothing). My mom grinned, pulled out a set of binoculars and started pointed out into the (empty) meadow. By the time we left a few minutes later, both sides of the road were crowded with parked gawkers trying to see whatever mystical beast we had been looking at.

Good times, good times.

Did anyone else hear Cletus's voice saying the quoted passage of 3_Butt_Cheeks post?

I actually used the name "Brandine" instead.

Last time I was there, I was chatting with a ranger. Among the other things people had asked him, he said were "Where do you keep the animals at night?" and "How do you train all of these?" yeesh.

I was there at elk rutting season, and a batch of them were clustered around some of the buildings out near the main mudpot area (Darned if I didn't forget the name). One car drove up to within 10 feet of a big bull, rear window lowers, some kid leans out to take a picture. A nearby ranger starts hollering, running towards em.

Too late, the bull lowers his head, sprints, and caves in the entire rear wheel well. The car limps off, rubber getting chewed up by the collapsed metal. Good times.

Eckyhade, holy crap! Someone actually let their dog out by the hot springs? I feel sorry for the dog, not so much for him. Last time I was there, there was trash in some of the springs. One of the rangers nearby said that people sometimes try and plug up the springs and geysers.

I love Yellowstone. The best thing is to get up just before sunrise and then go for a drive. Yes, I know, I lose points for the driving, but I saw so many animal moms and babies walking around before the crowds scared them off.

Sometimes Darwin just wants to play.

Eckyhade:
Yeah I almost forgot about the California guy who let Fifi out by the hot springs. Fifi took the plunge and started yelping...(190deg.F water at 2.5 pH). So the guy did the right thing and jumped in to save Fifi. He lived for a few days in the burn center down in Salt Lake with 2nd and 3rd degree burns over 98%of his body. Which means the bald spot on his head was OK.

Hot Dog!

They still hand these out at the park entrance, apparently for good reason:

Too many people are idiots concerning animals. They think the forest is "Bambi" and farms are all like Old McDonald's, where all the animals hang out together and are big buddies. The people who move from the suburbs to the country to start hobby farms are some of the worst - they're shocked when coyotes, weasels, rats, and predatory birds eat their way through their new pets. "But we thought the country was peaceful and relaxing!" It's like they're using cartoons and storybooks for their background knowledge.

And what the heck was up with that "Barnyard" movie? The main character was male but yet had a full udder. I guess the writers never heard the phrase "as useless as tits on a bull."

A 12-year-old boy from Pennsylvania was hospitalized after he was flipped into the air by a bull bison at Yellowstone National Park.

Park officials say witnesses reported that the boy was posing Thursday (June 26th) with members of his family within 1-2 feet of the mature bull bison.

The bison flipped the boy about 10 feet in the air.


This thread is useless without the hilarious pictures.

ThrnPhl: Wolves never come within even 300 yards of people. They are incredibly scared of humans.

I have pictures of 3 arctic wolves eyeballing me from 20 feet away that cast disbelief on your statement. And no they weren't in a zoo.

ThrnPhl: Wolves never come within even 300 yards of people. They are incredibly scared of humans.


Stick some unwrapped beef jerky or hotdogs in your pockets and get back to me later.

Cone of Uncertainty: At Yellowstone, you see people approach and stand next to bison all the time, including standing between mother and juvenile bison. And yes, the Park Service does everything but come up to you with a megaphone and yell "Stay away from the bison, dumbass!!!", but people keep doing it.

When I was working for the Park Service last summer, I got to yell at the morans for getting too close to the animals. It was great, and there were no shortage of opportunities.

/Not a uniformed ranger, so we could be ruder, too.

My sister is a park ranger and has all sorts of similar stories. The best tourist lines include:
"When do you turn the waterfall off to save energy?"
"Is the lava hot?"
"Why would the park put something dangerous here?"

My favorite story is how people from all over send rocks back to the Hawaii Volcano park because of the "Curse of Pele." The curse was invented by a tour bus driver back in the 1960s who was tired of tourists leaving rocks on his bus. Most of the rocks aren't even lava and some aren't even rocks but plastic molded tiki gods. There's a huge pile of this stuff behind the main visitor center.

dougfm: I have pictures of 3 arctic wolves eyeballing me from 20 feet away that cast disbelief on your statement. And no they weren't in a zoo.

I was speaking in general. I don't know the circumstances of the situation, but if you are wandering about in their territory, it is possible to get close. IN GENERAL, wolves have no desire to be close to humans, and I have not heard of any reports of a healthy wolf attacking a human (rabid or wolves suffering from starvation is a different matter). I knew a few people who were there when they reintroduced wolves to the park, and they all said the adult wolves ran a fair distance away, even the mothers who laid down and whimpered until their pups were released. Additionally, in a park like Yellowstone, where the wolves have plenty of elk and other animals to feed on, you will not see any where they will threaten humans. Moose, bison, elk, coyotes, and bears (bears to an extent) have absolutely no problem wandering about near where humans

I hope Dad got a good picture, and when he gets back home and logs onto his TF account, perhaps he can post it for all of us.

pinguwin: They are darwining their kids, not themselves

You've clearly missed the point.

pinguwin: Only problem I have is that they are darwining their kids, not themselves.

So, tell me how genes get passed from generation to generation again?

Having met lots of Wardens (what Parks Canada calls our Rangers) on various courses, I've heard lots of "dumb tourist" stories; I think the best was the German couple visiting Jasper who had coated their 6 year-old child's hand in honey, to get video of the bear licking it off.

Fortunately they were stopped before this went ahead.

Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo

3_Butt_Cheeks: I can see the redneck parents now... "Hunny..git closer to the deer fer a picture!"

I got fifty bucks that says the 'Redneck Parents' drive a Volvo and have an Obama sticker on their rear bumper. I'm sure if they had seen Manbearpig they would keep their distance.

Bison bison bison bison bison bison bison bison bison

Lee451: Starting with "the baby boomer" generation, people have moved away from living in "the coutry" and been educated (from infancy) that animals are cute and lovable. Walt Disney is to blame for this, as all his animated movies have involved sweet and cuddly wild animals. Remember, the classics, such as "Bambi" and "The Jungle Book" were released every 7 years, so there was always a fresh new crop of children to see them.
.

No sir. Typical answer though....blaming Hollywood or to cover up your own stupidity.

'It's not my fault. The TV told me to do it'