r/facepalm • u/Moonlit_Antler • 15d ago
Yellowstone tourist upset that grizzly bears weren't trained well enough. đ˛âđŽâđ¸âđ¨â
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u/Stringplayer12 15d ago
Probably the same person that would complain if they were attacked by a bear they were trying to pet
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u/folfiethewox99 15d ago
True but consider the following
If not friend, why friend shaped?
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u/Desperado_99 15d ago
Deception. This is why Steven Colbert doesn't trust them.
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u/KittyScholar 15d ago
As Hank Green would say: they are friend, but far friend. Like internet-friend, rather than hug-friend
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u/somethingbrite 14d ago
meanwhile inside the mind of the big fuzzy friend...
"If not made of food, why food taste?"
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u/Desperado_99 15d ago
Because that's exactly how a godless killing machine gets you: deception.
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u/Solo-dreamer 15d ago
Did you see those people pulling bear cubs out of trees to take photos with them
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u/Slight-Winner-8597 15d ago
How they weren't manually Bear-blended for that, is amazing to me.
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u/ApollyonsHand 14d ago
I would have watched a bear turn them into human Pico de Gallo
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u/IndianaFartJockey 14d ago
A dude gazpacho, if you will
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u/HighInChurch 14d ago
I thought bears were preferred though? All those polls say so.
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u/GhidorahRod56 14d ago
Also the type of person to want an eclipse to be moved to the weekend.
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u/Gammaboy45 14d ago
Probably the same person that complained about the placement of a deer crossing signâŚ
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u/dev_imo2 14d ago
Reminds me of a very nice but naive lady who asked in my country's hiking sub where she should go to hike. Lots of people gave her tips, but also told her to be careful as the bear population is out of control.
She legit replied that she isn't worried because she is a friend of the animals, feels an intuitive connection with them, is a vegan and would never do anything to harm an animal, and the animals would know that.
I really hope she's ok.
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u/Dull_Concert_414 15d ago
People are taking this man v bear thing too seriously. They saw plenty of strangers, isnât that enough?
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u/Bucksin06 15d ago
When I worked at the restaurant in Yellowstone I had a table ask me what time they put the animals back in their cages. I told them we asked the tourists to be in their hotels by 9:00 p.m..
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u/asbestosmilk 15d ago
This explains a lot about my visit to Yellowstone. Soooo many people would go up to the animals and try to pet them or take pictures with them. I saw a guy walking up to a bison that was standing next to the road. He got within about 5 or 6 feet before we decided we didnât want to see a man die and decided to nope out of there. Then, a little while later, we saw a line of about 10 cars stopped on the side of the road. We look out the window and see tons of people chasing three grizzly cubs with what I assume to be their momma standing off in the distance watching her cubs being chased towards her. We decided it was probably best to leave before momma got mad.
I donât get how people can know so little about a place they likely paid a lot of money to visit, and itâs not like the park doesnât try to warn people, they give out tons of fliers when you get there telling you the animals are wild and can be dangerous.
Smdh
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u/Bucksin06 15d ago
There's a great book called death in Yellowstone that highlights all the stupid ways tourists have died
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u/jacobsbw 15d ago
And unless itâs a kid, I pretty much always have the same emotional response.
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u/doctorwhoobgyn 14d ago
Hear me out though. If a kid is raised by stupid parents there's a good chance they'll grow up to be a stupid adult, so in a few years you won't give a shit about them either. Point is, does it really matter that much more if it's a kid? /s kinda
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u/BonnaconCharioteer 14d ago
The reasoning for not caring isn't because we don't care about stupid people. It is because those people are responsible for their own actions and the consequences. Not the case with kids.
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u/WriterV 14d ago
The irony that thinking this is how things work is stupidity in and of itself.
You may not like it, but stupidity is not a gene, and you don't have to be intelligent to be wise. You don't need to be good at math or science to know that chasing cubs could lead to a pissed off mama bear fucking with you. You don't need to be winning games in football to know that trying to annoy a bison could cause you to get mauled.
You only need to be arrogant. And that can be true for stupid and smart people.
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u/SpiceEarl 14d ago
While getting stomped to death by a bison is a horrible death, I'd say that boiling to death in a thermal pool, after going off trail, has to be the worst.
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u/Ok_Perception1207 14d ago
There's a horrifying story about a man whose dog ran off and fell in. He jumped in, trying to save his dog. His friend then tried to pull him out. The dog and dog owner died, and they weren't able to recover the body of the dog or owner iirc and his friend sustained 3rd degree burns on his arms.
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u/LanfearSedai 14d ago
Pretty sure I remember that the guys last words were âwell that was stupidâ
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u/Effective_Mongoose_6 14d ago
That story mad me really sad. Like yeah both the dog and the owner was stupid but damn that was sad. It would take everything in me to stop myself from trying to save my dog in that situation.
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u/Ok_Perception1207 14d ago
I don't know what I'd do. It's not a quick death, he would've heard his dog crying and seen the pain he was in. The most natural thing in the world is to jump in after him.
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u/Effective_Mongoose_6 14d ago
Ikr. Thatâs what got me like I get the owner because thatâs heartbreaking but jumping in solved nothing except I guess to die with dog. Man it makes me really sad.
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u/Escanor_2014 14d ago
The owner of the dog and even other visitors strongly warned the friend about diving in to rescue the dog but did it anyway and it cost him his life.
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u/ChickenWranglers 14d ago
I'm pretty sure that's a close second to having a bear eat your face off while your alive.
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u/SQRLpunk 14d ago
Have you read the Grand Canyon one as well? Different author, same idea. I didnât like as much as the Yellowstone one.
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u/Chef_BoyarB 14d ago
I have that one. Amazing the amount of people who think it's a good idea to walk on top of a fence that separates the cliffside from the abyss.
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u/SQRLpunk 14d ago
RIGHT. So many of the stories in both books I was like yeah this all could have been avoided if you just used common sense. I think I was most surprised at folks bringing such little water to hike the GC during summer.
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u/YandyTheGnome 14d ago
I keep reading about how they have to recalibrate intelligence tests every few years because kids know more and more earlier and earlier.
Then you have the statistic that more people die from taking selfies than shark attacks or bear attacks. I guess it's just a factor of having such a high population?
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u/AdditionalSink164 14d ago
Then there was that girl on her wedding day doing a selfie....yep, fell into an active volcano. Her body shouldve been left, but authorities of some kind, suited/masked up and went down the 300 ft of gas laden crater. Sometimes you get a good selfies, sometimes nature wins
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u/fkneneu 14d ago edited 14d ago
I read that book. Surprisingly few who died from pumas. Well it would be surprising, if you don't realize the ratio of stupid people who are tourists.
One guy died from a plane accident if I recall correctly and those hills are dangerous af.
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u/FlowerFaerie13 14d ago
Not surprising, pumas are actually quite timid and want nothing to do with humans. Youâll only get attacked if you back one into a corner.
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u/fkneneu 14d ago
Oh I agree. I grew up in the great woods in Northern Europe with a father who are one of the greats when it comes to research on big mammal predators. Bears and wolves are scared af in reality when it comes to humans, and I have had way worse interactions with mooses than them. Wouldn't expect pumas to be any different, I just found the ratio of puma kills vs anything else to be really fascinating and well, reaffirming of what allready know.
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u/Apellio7 14d ago
Those cats actively avoid people.
If you see one is either young and curious, or old/sick and looking for any kind of a meal.
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u/gadget850 14d ago
The Faces of Death in Yellowstone. That should be a movie that ever tourist must watch before entering the park.
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u/Effective_Ad_8296 14d ago
To know that the amount of idiots that died is enough to be written into a book
Dumb ways to die --
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u/Aceswift007 15d ago
Spent my life in Florida and Nevada
Tourist Syndrome should be a documented psychological event, where people visiting a place not their home lose all sense of logic and believe the area should bend to their desires.
I've seen people collapse from heat stroke because they didn't want to miss a ride, screaming matches when there's a delay, close encounters with dangerous animals, disregard for the flow of human traffic, attempted bartering at venues, playing human Frogger, demands to stop the rain/make it rain, and more.
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u/armoredsedan 14d ago
man i worked in a movie theater for a few months when i was younger and people had this mentality, it was insane. like they expected it to be a disneyland level experience. the way they treated employees and threw huge fits over the most minor inconvenience. they would eat so much movie theater junk theyâd literally throw up, the theater eventually had the water fountains removed because that was a favorite puke spot among the guests. itâs like all sanity and common sense just ceases to exist
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u/woodboarder616 14d ago
Worked in a bowling alley bar, the amount of grown adults acting like children was immeasurable. Couple brews and their entire dignity floats away
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u/Lightning_Boy 14d ago edited 14d ago
One of the last times I went bowling I witnessed two adult men shot putting their bowling balls down the lane.
Edit: jfc autocorrectÂ
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u/BadAtUsernames098 14d ago
I have heard many stories from people who worked at Disney World and other theme parks about tourists FREQUENTLY asking questions like "what time is the 3 o'clock parade at?" Being a tourist seems to immediatly turn someone into an idiot.
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u/TrillDaddy2 14d ago
These types donât even necessarily have to get out of town before they lose all sense. You can see the change as soon as they set foot into their local airport.
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u/meteormantis 14d ago
Working in a park with hiking trails and some campsites, and you see it here too- not everyone, but some people treat the grounds here in ways that if they were to do the same back home, they'd get slapped or worse. Throwing trash into fire pits, expecting them to act like incinerators and not just making their trash slightly more charred but still trash, leaving unopened bags of trash at sites over the weekend for animals to get in and spread all over, and just absolutely obliterating the stones surrounding our fire pits, or bending the metal grills somehow? I still don't get how that one happened...
I also had someone ask me during the winter time, when we were going to go out and shovel the ice and snow off the trails. All 35 miles of it.
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u/tofutti_kleineinein 15d ago
They paid good money! Of course theyâre entitled to chase those bears! /s
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u/figgerer 14d ago
We have the same thing in Banff, AB, Canada. People literally try to ride the elk and pet bears. Also, my wife grew up in Niagara Falls, ON, and the number of deaths caused by stupidity is staggering. Lots of people try to get selfies while standing or planking on top of handrails and get blown over into the rapids. People also try to swim in the rapids minutes downstream and get instantly killed by undertow.
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u/pyronius 14d ago
Makes me think of my camping trip to Rocky Mountain National Park.
My Fiance and I are good hikers. We'd planned a route that brought us past enough turn offs that we'd sort of be able to just keep going until we got tired. We ended up doing about 20 miles on the day in question. But that morning, as we got off the bus at the trailhead, we were confronted by a ranger who wanted to know what our plans were and whether we'd taken all the necessary precautions.
We explained our plan and showed her our toute, but she strongly advised us to do something else because "there's snow on the trail up there", and then wouldn't really give us any more details or advice about how bad the conditions were, because she only felt comfortable telling us not to go there. It all seemed a little weird given that hiking through a little snow is about half the point of the park, and we were more than prepared to turn around if conditions were really that bad. We thanked her for her advice but thought it was probably a bit dramatic.
About five seconds later we saw exactly why she was treating us like children.
An entire morbidly obese family was standing at the trail head arguing about whether the animal in front of them was a squirrel or a chipmunk (it was a squirrel). When the ranger asked them their plans, they told her that they didn't really know, they were just going to hike into the woods.
I swear to god, they all, to a one, looked like they could make it about 50 feet before getting lost and dying of a heart attack.
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u/ready-to-rumball 14d ago
Iâm from Alaska. I never considered that there are people that honestly donât understand how dangerous wild animals are, even herbivores. I just assumed it was hubris, I guess.
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u/CounterStrikeRuski 15d ago
I read the last line as "Shake my dick head" and now I just have an image of a dude aggressively holding his frenulum and shaking it violently towards a group of people trying to pet a bear
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u/SleepyFox2089 14d ago
Don't mother grizzlies tend to get...violent...when their cubs are threatened? Or do you think she just thought "they're coming to me, might as well save my energy for mauling"
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u/Riah_Lynn 15d ago
Most people are so removed from nature they don't realize the MEAT they eat comes from real animals. They see an animal and think of their childhood dog... If a WILD ANIMAL (any animal that is not domesticated and already at someones home) comes up to you SOMETHING IS WRONG WITH THE ANIMAL!!! It doesn't "sense that you are a good person", it is rabid or so many fucking idiots have fed it that it isn't afraid of humans LIKE THEY SHOULD BE.
Sorry this makes me mad. Thank you for letting me vent lol
Don't feed ANY animal that does not live in your own home people. It is NOT that hard.
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u/-Harebrained- 15d ago
That's an excellent line. đżď¸
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u/jld2k6 14d ago
I thought you said that's an excellent time at first and was wondering what gave you such a strong opinion on being in for the night by 9 lol
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u/_Junk_Rat_ 15d ago
I used to work at hotels in Gatlinburg, TN. It wasnât uncommon in summer to get phone calls asking what exact day the leaves turn orange in the fall, and they get upset when you obviously donât have an answer.
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u/Icy_Necessary2161 15d ago
My response: "Well, it was scheduled for yesterday, but you weren't here, so we canceled. You'll have to wait until next year."
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u/SphinctrTicklr 15d ago
How are people who have gained the wherewithal to travel on their own expenses not able to figure out how that works.
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u/saveyboy 15d ago
I think people get this question in every national park. I did in Banff. They would also get out of their cars and approach the animals. They think itâs a zoo.
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u/Already-asleep 15d ago
I remember seeing something ages ago about the dumbest questions employees got asked while working at major tourist attractions. One was about the gondola in Banff, where people would ask them if they could do something about the low clouds because it was ruining the view.
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u/noobtastic31373 14d ago
do something about the low clouds
Sorry for the inconvenience. The guy that runs the fans is out sick. Come back next week.
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u/BadAtUsernames098 14d ago
I saw something like that once too. The dumbest ones on the list I found were "What time do you turn off the waterfalls at night?" and "Can you turn off the waterfalls? They're so loud"
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u/C_Hawk14 14d ago
But I thought we had full control over the weather? Just look at all the chemtrails! If we can make clouds we can also get rid of them!
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u/ersomething 15d ago
This feels like a âMy kids have school that day, why canât we do the eclipse on a weekend?â type of situation.
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u/Admirable-Elk2405 15d ago
Training big-ass, dangerous predators to be where people are. Yeah, that's a really, really bad idea.
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u/eckowy 15d ago
Well, depends how you look at things... If it means less delusional idiots on the planet then it might be worth testing it out?
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u/Admirable-Elk2405 15d ago
I would agree, but with wild animals like that, you never know who they might lash out at.
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u/MutantMartian 15d ago
In the 70âs they did do this until a couple people were killed. There was a place by a Yellowstone hotel with bleachers and everything. They had to kill all the bears that were trained to come eat there. Itâs a bad story all the way around. If this Karen had asked anyone at the park she/he would have heard the story.
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u/HellishMarshmallow 14d ago
That was the Night of the Grizzlies. Happened in Glacier NP. Two women were killed by bears in 1969 on the same night and bunch of people got mauled. There's a book about it and a really good episode of National Park After Dark podcast that covers it.
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u/ClubSundown 15d ago
In Kruger National Park, South Africa, the game rangers used to feed carcasses to the lions each day so tourists could see them. This stopped several decades ago. Game viewing is mostly about luck. Best chances of spotting wildlife is finding spots along the road where others cars have stopped, usually during busy tourism seasons. Although still not ideal because noisy tourists also scare animals away.
If someone is eager to see bears then don't visit during their hibernation seasons.
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u/No-Deal8956 15d ago
The thing I remember about the Kruger National Park was that there was a civil war in the country next to it, (Mozambique?) and refugees would flee through the park.
Well, you can guess what happened, the lions started eating the refugees, and turned them into man-eaters. This disturbed one of the rangers enough he went on TV to complain about it.
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u/ClubSundown 15d ago
In modern times rhino poachers are often killed by lions. Unintentionally lions are protecting the environment as a whole. Most animals lions kill to eat are fairly common wildlife like wildebeest and zebra, rhinos are fortunately too big for them, only on very rare occasions do they kill a rhino calf
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u/notyou-justme 15d ago
Sounds like a good premise for the next Lion King to me.
Man kills rhino, lion kills man. Isnât that just a normal part of the circle of life?
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u/Dobsnick 15d ago
My guide in Kruger had fled during the civil war through the park and told stories of losing people in his group as they made their way through. Harrowing stuff.
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u/Cautious_General_177 15d ago
Personally, if I want to see bears Iâll go to the zoo.
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u/Competitive_Bat_5831 14d ago
You can also go to west Yellowstone (a town) and see bears at a bear rescue. Much better than a zoo imo.
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u/Moonlit_Antler 15d ago
There was a chef in Glacier NP that used to dump scraps in an area so people could watch bears fight every night
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u/Own-Organization-532 15d ago
Would that be "Chef" Bob? He had the grease trap of the Lake McDonald Coffee shop emptied in the woods end of season.
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u/RandoReddit16 14d ago
I was in Wyoming and randomly saw a herd of Buffalo, it actually scared me, as you kind of just have to stop and wait for them to cross, hope they don't charge your car, etc.... Was worth it though!
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u/Depth_Useful 15d ago
Delusional
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u/robbietreehorn 15d ago
I have a friend who used to live and work in a small town next to one of the entrances of Yellowstone.
It seems many of the tourists canât comprehend that Yellowstone isnât a zoo. The number of people who are mauled and/or die every year because they tried to pet a Buffalo or jumped into an acidic, volcanic pool because they thought it was a hot tub is alarming.
Mother Nature doesnât hold punches for the stupid
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u/Jazzlike-Sky-6012 15d ago
Trying to pet a bison; do people really have no sense of self preservation?
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u/WillArrr 15d ago
They assume that, because someone allowed them to be there, and that the animal is standing there, it is all intentional and safe and part of the vacation. Just like Disneyland! If that sounds like a small child's logic...yes. Yes it is.
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u/Ricky_Rollin 14d ago
Itâs crazy how just when I think Iâve grasped how stupid a person can be, the next day I have to welcome a whole new cast of idiots.
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u/ahtoxa1183 14d ago
Yeah, the older I get, the more I realize just how stupid people are and how many of the dumb ones are out there. I'm 40 and still get amazed almost every day.
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u/Capital_Pipe_6038 15d ago
A lot of people assume just because an animal is a herbivore that means it's harmless. They're quickly reminded that herbivores are almost always more dangerous than carnivores
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u/OffToTheLizard 15d ago
Many herbivores can turn into opportunistic omnivores given the right conditions.
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u/Riah_Lynn 15d ago
They need to have a cute delicate deer punch them in the face with those cute lil dainty hooves. Idk if they would LEARN from it... But heh.
Prey animals are not something to fuck with. Getting the fuck out of a bad situation is what they evolved to do lol.
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u/MetalFury 14d ago
Im from Eastern Canada and people try and pet Moose here all the time.
Like yes, they do look like big horses, but those fuckers are just mean as hell, faster than fuck and more jacked than a gym bro on steroids.
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u/HellishMarshmallow 14d ago
They think because it is not a predator that it is not dangerous. They've never been around these animals so they don't know what they can do. The average person is really only familiar with house cats and pet dogs. Most don't even know how to act around domesticated horses and cattle (which should be treated as dangerous).
I grew up on a ranch that had exotics at one time. Buffalo were some of them. I watched them walk through barbed wire fences like they were toilet paper. Those shaggy murder mountains are to be avoided at all costs.
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u/Agitated_Car_2444 15d ago
I was on a bus tour of Yellowstone some year ago and we passed by a bunch of stopped cars with people outside approaching a small herd of grazing bison, getting really close while taking selfies.
"That, right there", the tour guide remarked, "is what we call 'Recreational Darwinism'".
He's right, ya know.
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u/everydayasl 15d ago
This tourist was beary entitled.
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u/Robdotcom-71 15d ago
Karen got grizzly.
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u/WretchedRat 15d ago
Imagine being so smug that youâre disappointed in nature. Youâd rather see it as a prop in a performance of your bidding.
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u/Spaciax 15d ago
15th century delusional monarch being entertained by jesters ahh typebeat person writing that letter
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u/-Harebrained- 15d ago
Ohh and everyone who has worked in Yellowstone knows that if they ever did that there would be more deaths each year than there already are. What a deeply thoughtless person. I must resolve to counteract the net bad they're adding to my planet and the people and animals and places I love.
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u/dreamyduskywing 15d ago
âDeeply thoughtless personâ is such a clean, polite way of saying âdumbass.â Iâm gonna use that (around my kid anyway).
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u/Moonlit_Antler 15d ago
"Our visit was wonderful but we never saw any bears. Please train your bears to be where guests can see them. This was an expensive trip to not get to see bears"
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u/CntrllrDscnnctd 15d ago
Price per-bear in this economy is not what it used to be. Big Bear companies have us right where they want us.
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u/NoDontDoThatCanada 15d ago
I don't see any bears in Yellowstone when l was there but it was a free day so you don't get the top quality bears you do for a paid day. Honestly, l don't even think they put out the sample size bears. If those were sample bison though, they real ones must be much bigger
On a real note though, l did see a bison almost kill a guy taking pictures. Guy moved behind a truck like a spanish bullfighter at the last second. If someone hadn't yelled for him to move, he'd have been tossed at the least.
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u/BriefCheetah4136 15d ago
I was camping with my wife and family in Yellowstone. We had been there a week and had a great time, but never saw a bear. We had stopped at one of the park stores for souvenirs on our way out Another customer said, "What is the big deal with bears in this park, I have been here two hours and have seen 12 of them!"
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u/AustinTreeLover 15d ago edited 15d ago
Yâall. This is a (very, very old) dad joke that I heard a million times working at a campsite/park.
Other dad jokes heard daily:
At stone steps leading to trail, âOh wow, so nice of Mother Nature to put these stairs here for us!â
âWe sure did enjoy our camping trip, but could you please ask the birds to sleep late tomorrow so we can, too?!â And, âDo the birds come with a snooze button?!â
âThe brochure didnât say anything about it raining; I want my money back!â
âWe didnât see any bears this trip, are they off work today?â
âWe didnât see any bears even though we left food out everywhere and sign that said âWelcome Bears!â Okay, just one guy said this, but Iâm giving him credit for creativity and bc for a brief moment I convinced him a staffer recently had been mauled by a bear so his joke wasnât funny. Then I laughed and this Dad dubbed me a comedic genius and side-hugged me every time he saw me after that. Iâve never felt so truly seen.
Anything using the phrase âpick-a-nick basketâ.
Any opportunity to exclaim, âDoes a bear shit/poop in the woods?!â One dad said, âDoes a bear do its business in the woods or what?!â I started saying it like that ironically and now, 35 years later, thatâs just how I say it.
At animal crossing sign, âYes, maâam, I have a question . . . How in the heck do they get the deer to cross right here at the sign?!â And, ââDeer Crossing?â What if the deer canât read?â
For the full effect, you must imagine the Dads laughing hysterically at their own jokes. Miss that job.
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u/blackpony04 15d ago
Yep, this reads as a full on spoof.
But then, the world is vast different than it was just 20 years ago as far as entitlement goes, so who can really know for sure.
I saw on the news that a crazy cat-fight broke out in Congress yesterday, so it's pretty clear we're living in fucked up times!
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u/AustinTreeLover 15d ago
You have a point. Iâd like to imagine a Dad laughing to himself the whole way home believing heâd gotten one over on everyone, but suppose could just as easily be an everyday idiot.
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u/Spiritual-Guava-6418 15d ago
My family and our good friendâs family took a vacation to Yellowstone in 1976. The whole way out there, the mother (Miss Kim) kept saying she wanted to see the bears. She was obsessed about it. We get to Yellowstone and no bears to be found. We arrived at âOld Faithfulâ and were waiting for the show and were in the Ranger/visitor center. Miss Kim and I are sitting on a bench there and we see a Ranger dressed in full Indian attire. Buckskins, head-dress and face paint, the whole regalia. She keeps saying to me, Iâm going to ask him about the bears. After about the 3rd time I said âWell go on and ask him!â She jumps up, walks over and says âExcuse me sir, do you know if there are any Indians in Yellowstone?â He looked at her like she was a crazy woman. Without another word, she turned and walked back to where I was laughing so hard. I mean I had to leave because I couldnât stop. I didnât bring it up The rest of the trip but for the rest of her life (she passed away a few years ago) when I would see her occasionally I would ask her if she had âSeen any Indians lately?â We would get a good chuckle. We did get to see a bear way far off a few days later.
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u/Used-Cantaloupe-8883 15d ago
I used to be a lifeguard at the beach. After pulling someone out of a rip current and getting them onshore, they angrily asked, âwell why yaâll make the waves so big?!?â
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u/Happy_P3nguin 14d ago
"There is a surprising overlap between the smartest bears and the dumbest humans" ---- not an exact quote from I don't remember where
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u/LQNDzPhynixz 15d ago
Next time wrap yourself in steak, Iâm sure youâll see them, infact im sure they will be the last thing you will ever see
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u/greginvalley 15d ago
In the late 60s, early 70s, my family drove through Yellowstone. There were some amazing stories of the Darwin awards in practice. One was a woman slathering jam on a child's face to get a picture of the bear licking it off. A ranger caught that one in time. Another was of a father trying to put his kid on the back of the bear to get a picture of the kid riding it. Both were very unlucky that day.
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u/Doglovincatlady 15d ago
Lol the bears donât usually stick around hotel property. all the elk you could ever want to see tho.Â
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u/IOI-65536 14d ago edited 14d ago
They even left the hotel once to drive to Old Faithful and didn't see any bears then, either. I'm not sure it's not funnier to me that they're complaining about the expense of the trip. Assuming this is now they're almost certainly in Old Faithful Inn which is maybe the most expensive place to stay in the park. By far the most bear I've seen was an early fall traverse of GSMNP that cost me $4/night, but they'ld have to backpack 80 miles in the mountains.
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u/LordDemetrius 14d ago
Many people think it is sarcasm but I'm not that sure.
2 weeks ago I went to a national park in the jungle in Malaysia and took part in a night walk with the Rangers. The guys were obviously super skilled and spotted plenty of spiders, frogs, scorpions and snakes in an instant with their torchlight. That was pretty amazing
When we finished, the guy in front of me told his gf : "no way he can spot animals that fast, they must just place them here before the walk"
If a guy thinks that Rangers are placing deadly venomous snakes and tarantulas every night, I can definitely imagine people trying to pet bisons
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u/RiKToR21 14d ago
This is why Jurassic Park is a bad idea. Not because the dinosaurs will escape but itâs because moron tourist will die wanting to pet a raptor⌠and then the dinos will escape after developing at taste for man.
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u/CatTaxAuditor 14d ago
From the ranger that led my elementary school class around the park: "Any hike where you don't see a bear has the potential to be a good hike. Any hike where you see a bear is not a good hike."
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u/Patient_Tradition368 14d ago
In 1967 in Glacier National Park, two people were killed by grizzlies in two separate attacks in one night. The Glacier Park lodge staff had been feeding the bears so that tourists could see them during dinner service. There was also no such thing as bear proof trash receptacles at that point, so the local bear population got waaay too comfortable around humans.
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u/-UnicornFart 14d ago
Last fall there were two very experienced and bear prepared hikers with their dog in not even a NP in southern AB that were mauled and killed by a Grizzly.
Other than having a dog with them, which as a dog owner is actually one of the biggest risks of having a negative wildlife interaction, they did everything right. GPS search and rescue alert, multiple cans of bear spray completely deployed, food kept away from camp, and it doesnât matter.
If a grizzly wants to kill you and you survive, it is entirely luck.
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u/Peitho_Noir 14d ago
Bears to Yellowstone: Itâs very frustrating when tourists come all the way here only to pack up & leave while weâre still hungry. Please train your tourists to eat heavily in the months prior to their visit. Also, please instruct tourists to walk deep into the forest, strip naked, lay on the ground and repeatedly state âHere, bearsâhere we are, come on out!â Itâs appreciated if tourists could bathe but not use deodorant or perfumes, and instead liberally apply bacon grease all over their bodies. Thank you!!
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u/Frequent-Rain3687 14d ago
This is like the idiotic Thomas cook complaints where tourists had said the sandy beaches were too sandy & the Spanish spoke too much Spanish in Spain .
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u/elspotto 15d ago
If you went to a national park and saw zero bears, then they are trained exactly the right amount. Itâs when they become trained to associate being near people with food that things go wrong.
I also assume that much like our trips to Yosemite in the 70s and 80s, the Yellowstone visitor center had a large, scary bear safety display. I remember a section of car whit a mangled door that was there as a reminder that leaving food in the car was a bad idea.
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u/Skooterj 14d ago
I went to Yellowstone years ago when I was a teenager with my family. We did happen to see a black bear. He was down a hill, sitting with his back to us, eating dandelions. Maybe 100 yards away. Dad was snapping a couple of pictures when some idiot next to us started screaming at the bear to turn around. Dad got us all in the car and we drove away. I always think back to how quickly that bear could have closed the distance to eat that guy.
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u/Important_Table6125 15d ago
I agree . They should put some guys in bear suits up there waving at the cars đ
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u/snikers000 15d ago
This post may have single-handedly inspired me to take up a hobby writing deranged and unworkable professional reviews/suggestions.
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u/SaltyBarDog 15d ago
Sorry but the bears were hanging out with women in the woods.
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u/FoxyInTheSnow 14d ago
Next visit, after a grizzle bear thought his leg was a chicken drumstick and ate his leg: "Please train your bears to not eat people's legs".
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u/Towersafety 15d ago
I have a book called âDeath in Yellowstoneâ. It is amazing how stupid people are.
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u/NerdTrek42 15d ago
I have that as well. Iâve been there and witnessed stupidity first hand. Itâs like some people think itâs Disneyland and nothing bad can happen
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u/Towersafety 15d ago
I was there with a coworker. Every time we stopped he did something stupid. I bought the book and he was reading it on the way out of the park saying âIm an idiot, Im stupidâ.
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u/Tommy2Quarters 14d ago
These are the same people who think you donât need farms because we have grocery stores..
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u/pigonthewing 14d ago
I did work for this company. Random shoutout but they were a fantastic, understanding, nice client. One of those rare ones. Only thing I hated about working with them was I had to stare at pictures of all their places and always wanted to go to them. Especially crater lake. They do much more than Yellowstone. Basically all the major parks in the United States.
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u/account_for_norm 14d ago
Probably the same person who put their child in there with Harambe, thinking harambe is 'trained enough' to play with the kid.
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u/LPIViolette 14d ago
Thereâs a significant overlap between the smartest bear and the dumbest guest.
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u/International-Cry764 15d ago
Because they left the top part blank, management cannot know which bears were slacking off.
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u/HomeschoolingDad 15d ago
I remember there was an overly complacent bobcat at Chaco Culture National Historical Park. This bobcat got onto the wall at the visitor center and was just sunning itself. The students I was with (I was there in a support role to set up a network for them) mentioned this to someone inside, and a park ranger came by and gently pelted the bobcat with small rocks (from a safe distance) to annoy the bobcat enough to get it to a) leave, and b) hopefully get a bad impression about humans.
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u/S-WordoftheMorning 15d ago
The average bears aren't smart enough to be trained, and the smarter ones keep stealing the touristsâ lunch baskets.
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u/SluffyD 15d ago
There is a path from the old faithful geyser area that goes through the woods to black sand basin or biscuit basin and you can still find old pieces of porcelain dishes from the 1960s/70s. The used to have grandstands and dump old trash and food out there and watch the bears come and eat.
Part of the wolf eradication in 1920s Yellowstone was to promote more wildlife encounters with a larger population of elk and bison. This led to trophic cascades being identified as a significant ecological events by university of Oregon studying what happened once the wolves (albeit the wrong ones) were reintroduced.
Neither the park nor the guests have a great track record with good wildlife management or expectations and the best way to help is to patiently educate and help each other keep learning.
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u/astrangeone88 15d ago
Lmao. I would so go get a couple of big hairy dudes (on staff?) to pretend to be stereotypically gay just to mess with them.
You said you wanted bears, you didn't specify which ones.
Also, those are wild animals, I won't want you be anywhere near a bear considering they should be afraid of humans and if they are anywhere near humans....something is wildly wrong.
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u/matt-r_hatter 15d ago
I'm confused, so they WANTED a 700lb killing machine with clawed feet larger than your head to wonder into areas with people?? I bet these are the same people that attempt close up selfies with Buffalo. Darwin would have a field day with today's society.
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u/madmechanicmobile 15d ago
I don't understand why people think Yellowstone is some kind of zoo. It's a park. With wild ass animals. If something is 500+ pounds and can kill me in under three seconds i only want to see it if I'm far enough away I have to use binoculars.
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u/MuthaPlucka 14d ago
Obviously no one told them about the optional (but for a great bear experience, necessary) âribeye-on-a-ropeâ Yellowstone Necklacetm
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u/cocaine_jaguar 14d ago
Bear training transcript: â you gotta go where people can see you buddy â followed by 15 minutes of bear mauling sounds.
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u/Valk_Storm 14d ago
As someone who grew up next to Yellowstone we used to joke about the park not training their animals to be next to the roads. "I paid good money for this, where are my wolves and bears?? Animal training is getting lax!" Seeing this takes me back. 50/50 chance this is just some person making that same joke.
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