WATCH: Protective Cow Elk Sends Tourist Flying In Estes Park, Colorado

Mess with the female elk, and you won’t get the horns… but you’ll still get the scare of a lifetime.

There’s just something about wild animals and wild idiots crossing paths, eh? The genre of “Person Gets Too Close To Wildlife” videos is practically endless, as more and more people are caught on camera pressing their luck around animals and paying the price.

This latest example is out of Estes Park, Colorado.

In case you didn’t know, Estes Park is considered to be the “Elk Capital of the World.”  It’s estimated that over 280,000 elk live in Colorado, which is enough to give the state the honor of housing the largest concentrated population of elk in the world. Believe it or not, that many elk bring in tourists from all over the planet, particularly to the Estes Park area.

So it’s practically a guarantee to see elk there if you were to visit, and the people in this video really got a close-up encounter with the area’s elk population. The National Park Service recommends that tourists stay at least 25 yards away from what they call non-dangerous animals (that extends to 50 yards for animals like bears and wolves). This guy decided not to heed that warning, and instead got about as close as he could to this cow elk and her calves.

That’s another thing that people should know by this point: never mess with a mother out in the wild. You are just asking for trouble if you do so, and trouble is exactly what this gentleman got when he invaded the female elk’s personal space. He was trying to get a picture of the animal using his smart device, and apparently has no idea about the “zoom feature” that most modern phones boast.

He chose to zoom the old fashioned way, and creeped closer and closer to the elk that was standing on a bit of a hill. When the man overstepped that invisible boundary, the female elk let him know, and ran right at him. That caused the tourist to retreat quickly, which in turn, caused him to stumble and crash land on his butt.

Unfortunately for him, the female elk wasn’t done communicating to him that he needed to back up. She charged once more, while he was down on the ground, and for a second, it looked like things were going to get really ugly. But miraculously, the mother elk pulled up and turned away, allowing for the guy to get up on his feet and limp his way over to his travel companion… who he then chose to stand behind.

Long story short, if you were wondering who runs the Estes Park area, it’s still the elk that patrol the area:

Just a brutal and embarrassing showing by that guy… hope the picture that he got was worth it.

Luckily for him, if the picture didn’t turn out okay, he’s got this video that’s going viral to look back on. Colorado Adventures posted the footage, and social media users that stumbled upon it didn’t give much sympathy to the guy that looks like he went home with a sprained ankle as a souvenir:

“That elk looked more curious than hostile, which is lucky for him. Leave the elk alone.”

“She had a calf, she was protecting it. Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.”

“That’s great. Karma at its finest.”

“Mama protecting her baby…what do you people expect?”

“These people are the reason why we have warning signs on blow dryers, irons, etc.”

Boom, roasted.