The wrong way to view wildlife

Have you ever been watching wildlife and seen people do downright stupid things? How about a whole tour bus of foreign tourists courting death? During the Elk rut in Yellowstone NP along the Madison River, that is exactly what I saw. These tourists were from the far east, probably Japan, and were obviously not properly instructed by their tour guide as well as lacking an understanding of the English language. Evidently, they though that they were in a petting zoo! At least, that is the way that they were acting. Here is a bit more details and a few pictures http://stearnsphotography.com/Elk_YNP_Do_Not_Do_This.htm.

Fred, I saw a similar event years ago and almost got to witness the undoing of an old man while we were in Teton NP. A very large Bull Moose was laying in the shade of a tree and was stressed from the early morning heat and panting heavily. About three or four of us got close enough to take shots with our 300mm to 500mm lenses without disturbing the animal at all. Although I did not know the other shooters they all had common sense about them and understood the situation as I did. When all of a sudden, from an area we had not seen looking through our lenses with the narrow angles of view, an older gentleman came running into view with an Instamatic camera and was right on top of the animal and started taking pictures. The bull immediately felt the threat and came up off the ground head down towards the old man. Most of us kept shooting thinking we would have seen this poor old fool's undoing. But, he escaped to another area and the animal did not pursue him. The thing that was so ugly about the whole thing was the crowd with the old guy cheering him on and him waving in victory his Instamatic as if he had trophied the poor thing.

I see it every year, despite doing my best to avoid tourist hot spots. While the vast majority of people respect nature, there will always be some people that are clueless or just don't care.

On a similar note, a few years back while I was backpacking on the west coast, a fellow from another group went of the trail to try and get a picture. In doing so, he lost his footing, and fell about 15 meters down a cliff into a rock and driftwood-filled cove. A few hours later the helicopter rescue crew extracted him, but he then died at the hospital. The drive to get the perfect photo can be a powerful force, and some people just get too caught up in it.

I see that constantly in Denali NP every summer. Tourists surrounding moose and approaching bears! Sheesh! It is no wonder more people are not killed ...

Although I find that very stupid and ignorant, I can't avoid finding this a bit comical and funny too. For me that confirms again *my own* prejudice and cliché: As I was in CAN/US it were usually visitors from far east that did all kinds of amusing tourist-things: Like doing all kinds of "I was there and I have to make a funny posing" pictures in front of all the icons. taken with mobile-phone cameras, in front of my tripod... No matter what park, no matter what weather or time of day. This link provided here absolutely fits in what I observed
I also saw a group of tourists trying to get really close to a Bull-Elk who was next to the road in Jasper. These guys with their short focal lenght point-and shoots wanted to get as close to the grazing bull elk - just a few yards. Everyonce in a while the Bull elk did "attack" by lowering its head and running just a few steps towards the people. I had some good fun watching these ridiculous guys back off in face of the majestic bull-elk. It was great to see the supremacy of the elk. Nothing happened. But I am always amazed how stupid mankind is. There are warnings everywhere, signs with pictures. But there's seems to be a lack of common sense too. I really wonder sometimes...

Tourists may be uninformed, even stupid at times.

What really snaps my panties into a bunch are established photographers with top line gear doing the same thing. I've seen it in all the "name" parks where wildlife are regularly on the photo menu. It aint a zoo out there folks, and I cheer for the animal to show a little tooth and fang every time I see the Long Lens Crowd acting like uninformed tourists.

Here, here Hank, but remember these are pros that know more about critters than normal folks with a camera. They understand animal behavior and can stay safe. But it does lead the folks to believe the distance is safe.

Ross

They understand animal behavior and can stay safe.

I think his point, Ross, is that they aren't staying safe, and they should know better. Anyway, you'd think in places where the animals are even more dangerous, this wouldn't be a problem. Yet, a few weeks before I got to South Africa, a tourist was killed by a lion when trying to pose with the lion for a picture. This is in a park where the posted rule is that you aren't even allowed out of the car!

The guides in the parks there had lots of stories of stupid tourists too. In the case of the elephants, sometimes even the car isn't safe, as they've been known to charge and chase cars down the road.

Yet, a few weeks before I got to South Africa, a tourist was killed by a lion when trying to pose with the lion for a picture. This is in a park where the posted rule is that you aren't even allowed out of the car!

The Lion King and others like it have a lot to answer for. I'm kidding. Well, only partly.

I'm such a coward I wouldn't even enter grizzly or polar bear country on foot unless I had someone standing by with a big firearm, and no way would you see me getting out of a vehicle in Africa with lions nearby.

Shucks, even rutting white-tailed deer charge hunters and either gore them or force them up trees every year. I'm torn between laughing out loud at the antics of the tourists in Fred's and others' examples, shrugging my shoulders indifferently at their willy-nilly offering to become part of the wild food chain, or being outraged on behalf of the animals.

Sorry David, the comment was meant to be tongue in cheek.

Sorry David, the comment was meant to be tongue in cheek.

Stupid internet and it's lack of sarcastic tone.

I didn't really expect this kind of a reaction, but it is welcome. Too many people go to National Parks thinking that they are going to the neighborhood farm. Even there, you stay away from the Bulls, unless you are a real city slicker. Yellowstone has an official policy where you stay 25 yards away from all wildlife, except Wolves and Bear. The policy is to stay 100 yards away from them. They even have a page on the Yellowstone NP web site with examples of what happens when you act stupid. http://www.nps.gov/yell/photosmultimedia/safetyvideos.htm I am glad I did not witness anything like what they show in those videos. Unfortunately, they are almost hidden in the tangles of the web site.

Kenn brings up another interesting point concerning other dangers. I would be willing to bet that we have all been in some questionable situations in order to get the show. For instance, what do you do if, while photographing a hunting Coyote, you get out from behind the view finder to find he is only 20 feet away? Certainly running away is not the right thing to do.

If you look at the other pictures of Elk on my web site, you will see a lot of photographs that look like I was too close. But the 1.6 crop factor of my Canon EOS 40D coupled with a 100-400 mm lens and a 1.4x teleconverter and then cropping the result in the computer can sure make it look like you are really up close and personnel with almost any animal. Even then, I often feel like the animal has invaded my comfort space, not the other way around.

So far I haven't witnessed any people inadvertantly provoking animals, but several times I've had people inadvertantly provoke me!

Pardon my rant, but what is it about pointing a camera that makes strangers tap you on the shoulder to ask "What are you I looking at?" I wish I had a dime for the number of times people have interrupted my shooting just to tell me they once had a deer in their backyard and "Wouldn't you have loved to see it?"

Bull moose nothing! I'm libel to trample the next person who provokes me in the wilderness!

The one I see most often where I am are city people who see a herd of buffalo and think "cows." Many times I've seen people with the little point & shoots walk up to solitary bull buffalo, totally clueless just how dangerous those are. I try to talk to them whenever I can. And then there was the moron I once saw out in the Badlands who was trying to pick up a rattlesnake so his buddy could take his picture with it. He said he knew what he was doing--he'd seen it done on TV. Crying out loud. I tipped his wife off as to what he was up to, and she went over and put a stop to it.


Kent in SD

Wildlife can be photographed ethically, and frankly it usually is. But there's something about a crowd that will make otherwise sane people go a little cuckoo.

I watched rangers at RMNP run themselves half ragged shooing a bunch of photgraphers, including long lens and short, back from some rutting bull elk along the road. It was such a nasty scene, I didn't even pull my own long lens out of the truck, and instead I just sat back to watch the show.

I'm delighted that several citations were written.

I stayed on till the elk moved and the crowd scattered, by then acquainted with a couple of the rangers. The one who wrote the citations walked back to the others and popped off my favorite one-liner for crowd scenes and cameras:

"Cameras confer neither common sense nor morality!"

While watching the Elk during the rut at RMNP, I met several of the rangers. Actually, most of these are volunteers. One was telling me about a class that they all had to got through before the rut concerning keeping people away from the Elk. From his description, the instructor was a small woman hardly 5' tall. One of the volunteers in the class asked her how she handled an ornery tourist who refused to move back to the viewing area. Her response was that it was easy. The Bull Elk are only interested in two things during the rut, fighting and mating, which did they choose to do?

Later on, I ran across a trio who was going to do one of those variations where one takes the picture of the other two with the Bull in the extremely close background until all options had been exhausted. I tried this line. They still went out for the first picture, but then retreated. As they passed me, they said that they decided to take my advice. Sometimes even fools listen.

Good tactic, and I'll try it the next time I allow myself to be in a crowd of photographers involving wildlife.

It reminds me of an incident with elk I watched at Prairie Creek in Northern California. And intrepid photographer felt he needed closer to the elk, so he crossed a low wooden fence and approached a bull with a small herd of cows with his tripod and camera balanced over his shoulder. Perhaps contributing to the incident, the bull had moments before won a vigorous battle with a rival.

Our adventurous soul set up his tripod within 30 or 40 feet of the nearest cow, in spite of the yells and running approach of a ranger 100 or so yards away.

Whether the bull mistook the tripod and camera for a set of horns or simply wanted to express his displeasure at the close approach, it came at the photographer full tilt. Greatly startled, he abandoned his gear and ran for the fence, flipping over it microseconds before the bull reached him.

The bull returned to the tripod and proceeded to dismantle it, thrashing and mangling the legs with his horns and driving the camera into the ground. From where I stood I could see the lens ripped completely free of the tripod and the body ripped from the lens. One leg was completely free from the tripod and the other two were twisted.

The damage was immaterial once the elk made his final statement of disapproval. He systematically urinated over all of it before rejoining his ladyfriends.

The folks watching cheered the elk on, clapping and hooting with each clattering assault of horns and hooves on camera. The photographer was understandably upset at the total destruction of his gear, but more upset by the laughter. Last we saw of him was taillights, one finger raised defiantly out the window.

If you really want your faith in humanity shaken, find a seasoned park ranger and have them tell you some stories. A Yellowstone ranger told me about a mom who tried to put her toddler on a feeding grizzly's back for a photo op (that was when bears were allowed to feed in the park dump). On another occasion a family driving into the park asked her what time they let the animals out in the morning. She thought they were joking at first but they were serious.

Guy

Oh don't even get me started on tourists during Elk Rut season....I could go on for days. The things I have seen in Rocky Mountain National Park make you think that when some people enter and pay their entry fee at the station, they also left their brains there.

I was actually stunned this year by what I saw...massive amounts of people set up on teh side of the road, and I mean SET UP with....you ready??? Of all things...Bridge Tables. Yes, Bridge Tables, eating cheese & crackers, while letting their little kids (4...5 years old) wander off to apparently go "play" with the Bulls. I could not believe of people let along so many who have forgotten that these are wild animals. Finally I had seen enough, and from the passengers seat of my car, rolled down the window and started yelling at people, "Hey! Those animals are in mating season right now! They do NOT like humans this time of the year, and YOU are risking the life of yourself and YOUR child at this very moment!" Some paid no attention, while others moved away as fast as they could. And not 3 minutes later what happens? Mr Elk decides to rampage through all the parked cars on the side of the road, chase people, and clear the whole area.

I have a few pics of these people....amazing.....
http://kkart.deviantart.com/art/Idiot-Alert-2-98105907
http://kkart.deviantart.com/art/Idiot-Alert-98105828

What really gets me is that after this kind of stunningly stupid behavior, when a human gets injured the animal often gets destroyed because "it's a menace".

At a nearby bird sanctuary we often have sandhill cranes nesting. They can be super aggressive during this time and need to be avoided. But all the time people send their toddlers out with a handful of birdseed to "feed the nice birdies". These toddlers don't know any better but the birds are often taller than they are and are quite happy to peck and to rake them with their feet. Yikes! And of course the parents get wildly indignant when the kids get attacked.

I can tell you that 25 yards from a bull elk in rut is not nearly far enough, even if the NPS says that is a safe distance. I was photographing near Estes Park last year and saw a really handsome bull elk. I used a 400mm on my d300 and worked from a good 50 yards away. Suddenly he turned and charged me. I got behind a large bush which he proceded to try to tear apart with his antlers. My wife saw the problem and pulled the car off the road and drove up to rescue me.
A hormone crazed elk or moose is a dangerous animal indeed.

yes, I just witnessed last week in the Grand Tetons and Yellowstone... crazy...

In the last couple of years we've had brown bears appearing close to town, allowing lots of easy, informal viewing. After problems last year with harassment and traffic, the state troopers started monitoring the situation and even writing a few citations. WAHOO!!!!!!!! May the trend spread. Darwin doesn't work fast enough to remove the idiots, but court appearances certainly do their part in moderating behavior.

I saw something similar in RMNP last weekend except that they all drove themselves to the park and walked to the point where they almost got the Darwin Award. At RMNP the only posted restriction is to stay out of the meadows between 5 PM and 7 AM. This was in the middle of the afternoon. I like the YNP/GTNP regulations better. A bit farther away, there was a family with two small children with only their heads above the grass.

The NPS recommends 25 yds frim elk. This is not far enough! I was over 50 yds from a hormone crazed bull in Estes Park when he charged me. I was lucky to find a large bush to duck behind and play "ring around the bush" with him until a friend pulled up to the bush in a car and I hopped in and made my escape.

I guide tours through Yellowstone and Grand Teton, and see this foolishness all the time. Like others, I keep rolling, hoping to post some dumb tourist getting injured or killed. A few weeks ago, I was sitting in our vehicle with clients, watching bison as they crowded around us and crossed the road. All of a sudden, a California vehicle raced up, and an Asian woman leaped from the vehicle and rushed toward one of the bison. No camera in hand, mind you. Coincidentally, a ranger was passing by and ordered her to return to her car. Can't believe she and so many others are so stupid.

I would agree with those who say 25 yards is not enough distance from bull elk in rut. Last week, while in Mammoth, Yellowstone, I watched as so many tax payers got way too close to the elk who hang right in the middle of town. I thought I was quite the smart ass as I moved around behind these tourists, positioning myself to shoot them so close to the elk. One of the elk charged one of them AND THEN ME. Boy did I feel foolish and humbled. Give these animals their space and always have a safe escape.

I'm glad I'm not the only person that is disturbed by this behavior. I recently wrote an entry on my website about tourists invading a bull elk's space on the South Rim of Grand Canyon. A link to the photos is at the end of the article.

They even post less fortunate encounters between humans and animals on the Yellowstone web site. It seems to have little effect on a certain segment or tourists. Actual, we might better call them people with a death wish going out for the Darwin Award.
http://www.nps.gov/yell/photosmultimedia/safetyvideos.htm

When I was in Yosemite about 10 yrs ago, a large buck deer ws walking around the Village, occasionally stopping to munch flowers. Some stupid woman actually took her young child up to him and tried to sit the child on the back of the buck, for a picture. She actually got within about 3 feet of the buck, who thankfully took off.
un- be- lievable

Sandy