Tourist Presses His Luck Trying To Feed Bison In Yellowstone National Park, Immediately Gets Charged

Stupid is as stupid does.

Believe it or not, summer is wrapping up, which means that we unfortunately (but also hopefully) won’t have as many “can you believe how dumb this Yellowstone National Park tourist is being” videos brought to our attention. We’re also in the middle of what’s known as the “bison rut” right now… A.K.A. bison mating season.

The active months for male and female bison to do their thing spans from July all the way through September. It’s during this time that bison, especially males, are generally more aggressive than they normally would be. Why? Because the behemoths are competing for mating rights and territories over the span of a couple of months.

The bulls are doing all they can to display their dominance and show off in front of the cows, so it’s not a smart decision to try to mess with really any bison during the rut season. Male bison certainly don’t mind to make an example out of a human who just so happens to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, especially during this time of the year.

That brings us to this video out of Yellowstone National Park.

Tourists at the uberly popular and scenic national park have a knack for putting themselves in harm’s way, which often earns them the nickname of “tourons” (tourist morons). This particular “touron” seemingly ignored the National Park Service warning signs of staying 25 yards away from bison, and for some reason, he approached one of the park’s 2,000 pound beasts and tried to feed it.

You know… like it was a petting zoo.

As you might imagine, the wild animal wasn’t interested in taking the food from the park goer, and instead chose to charge the man. Fortunately for the guy (or unfortunately depending on who you were rooting for), this was more of a bluff charge, and the bison pulled up before it did any damage.

But it still managed to scare the everliving daylights out of “touron” that approached the bison, and even prompted the person taking the video – from a safe distance – to say this:

“Welcome to the morons of Yellowstone. Get him, get him! You idiot.”

In case it’s not clear, the guy capturing the footage was cheering for the bison to really teach the man a lesson.

Things could have gone south fast right there. The guy is lucky to live to see another day, and maybe he learned his obvious lesson: you don’t feed the bison at Yellowstone National Park. Witnessing bison during the rut season can be a cool experience, but it would benefit tourists (especially “tourons” like this guy) to extend that 25 yard buffer zone to 50, just to be safe around the increasingly agitated and active beasts.

The caption for the video, posted by ABC News, states:

“Video captured last month shows a man evade a charging bison after a misguided attempt to feed the animal at Yellowstone National Park. Bison might appear tranquil — but they have injured more people at Yellowstone than any other animal, according to the park service.”

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