It seems like every day, we鈥檙e treated to a new video of someone in Yellowstone National Park making a bad decision. If they鈥檙e not leaving the boardwalk to put their hand in a scalding thermal pool, they鈥檙e , or . But this video, of a group of tourists sprinting toward鈥攜es, toward, not away from鈥攁 family of bears, might just be the most head-in-hands frustrating one we鈥檝e seen yet.
While Instagram user originally posted the video back in early August, it didn鈥檛 reach wide circulation until late August, when , an account dedicated to chronicling visitors鈥 bad behavior in the country鈥檚 oldest national park, re-shared it. As the video begins, a mother black bear and her two cubs are foraging by the side of a traffic-choked road. Suddenly, the door of one of the stopped vehicles opens, and a person steps out. This seems to be the signal that the other visitors are waiting for: Almost simultaneously, about a half-dozen more get out of their cars and begin moving toward the bears. Two鈥攁 person holding a piece of paper of some kind, and an adult holding a child, start sprinting toward the animals. The mother bear ambles away, and as the video ends, the cubs follow.
There are many outdoor safety facts that a beginner might not know鈥攖hat lightning can strike from a clear sky, for example, or that wearing cotton clothing can put you in danger of getting hypothermia. It鈥檚 the role of experienced outdoorspeople to pass that knowledge on in as nonjudgemental a way as possible. But if you need someone to tell you not to chase a bear, we are sorry, but you are beyond help. If you know nothing else about bears, you know that bears are big, and bears have teeth and claws, and on very rare occasions bears use those attributes to absolutely ruin people鈥檚 days. From Golidlocks to , our culture has an entire genre of stories whose morals boil down to 鈥渄o not screw with bears.鈥 While the ursine family in this situation were conflict-averse black bears, approaching a mama grizzly and her cubs is statistically the best way to get yourself mauled鈥攁nd we鈥檙e guessing none of the people pictured in this video were bear-aware enough to tell the difference.
Of course, people rarely do something as beautifully, breathtakingly stupid as sprinting at a bear out of ignorance alone: a healthy dose of groupthink helps. One person steps out of the car for some face time with a bear, or bison, or moose, and when they don鈥檛 immediately die, bystanders who were still entertaining the little voice in their heads that鈥檚 whispering maybe this isn鈥檛 a good idea mistakenly conclude that it鈥檚 safe. In this video, it鈥檚 not until that first visitor gets out of the car that the dam bursts.
Surprisingly, the creatures most in danger in these videos aren鈥檛 the tourists running full-tilt at a group of wild animals鈥攊t鈥檚 the bears. When they come into conflict with humans, bears are almost always the losers, ending up so habituated to people鈥檚 presence that they end up euthanized, hit by cars, or relocated far from their home territory. As with most creatures, approaching a bear is a great way to put it at risk.
While running around a bear is never a good idea (if you encounter one, standard procedure is to ) running away from one is an understandable mistake鈥攖he kind of thing that a normal, scared human might do by instinct. But if you see someone running towards one? Don鈥檛 join the herd.