Today's award goes to a visitor to a Utah state park.
If you've heard the phrase, "You mess with the bull, you get the horns," it also apparently applies to bison.
A man learned that lesson the hard way on Antelope Island Saturday.
Witnesses said it appeared the man provoked the beast, and it promptly rammed him into a fence.
"This person is very, very, very lucky that he wasn't killed," said assistant park manager John Sullivan.
Sullivan said the man seemed uninjured immediately after the ordeal, and "other than being a little dusty ... embarrassed and shell-shocked," he was "none the worse for wear."
Witnesses told rangers the man rattled a fence separating him from the bison, appearing to try to get its attention as he was taking pictures. Some also said he may have chucked a couple of rocks at the beast.
There's more at the link, including a rather spectacular photograph (see the gallery) of the man being crushed against a fence.
Well . . . if you're dumb enough to throw rocks at wild critters that outweigh you several times over, you deserve all you get! In Africa, we had a name for people like that. We called them 'animal food'.
Peter
American bison are kind of like our moose: big, dumb, and easily provoked. "Animal food" = "tourist".
ReplyDeleteOld rural adage, "Don't go bothering nothing that ain't bothering you".
ReplyDeleteBeing trampled/butted/gored by a bison was among the top 10 reasons for emergency room visits at the Cody, WY hospital when they were the primary hospital serving Yellowstone Park. It's not that that uncommon to see tourists urging their smarter children to, "get closer," when it's clear the child would just as soon leave 1500 pounds of unpredictability alone.
ReplyDelete"Oh look! It has a baby. Let's get closer."
ReplyDeleteExact quote of a tourist when Smarter Half and I visited Yellowstone in '94. And, yes, they had children in tow.
An that is why telephoto lenses were invented.
Duuumb!
ReplyDeleteThen again I probably shouldn't say much, I've petted 600lbs of tiger, given 150lbs of tiger a vigorous bellyrub, stuck my hand into an octopus' hidey hole and played with its suckers, and observed a bullshark catch a fish from 5 feet away, in its natural enviroment.