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The summer of social distancing calls for keeping 6 feet apart from folks outside of your household — but wild animals should be given much more space.
A California woman was gored multiple times by a bison at Yellowstone National Park last week after she came within 10 feet of it several times to take its picture.
The park directs visitors to stay at least 100 yards (300 feet, or 91 meters) away from bears and wolves, and 25 yards (75 feet, or 23 meters) away from all other animals.
The incident happened at the 72-year-old woman’s campsite on June 25. She suffered “multiple goring wounds,” according to a press release from the park, and was flown by helicopter to Eastern Idaho Regional Medical Center.
“The series of events that led to the goring suggest the bison was threatened by being repeatedly approached to within 10 feet,” said Yellowstone’s senior bison biologist, Chris Geremia, in a statement, noting that “a threatened bison may charge.” The National Parks Service is investigating the incident.
This is the second guest to get injured by a bison this season. Another woman was “knocked to the ground” and injured on May 20 after getting too close to a bison in the Old Faithful Upper Geyser Basin, park officials reported. She refused medical treatment.
While park traffic is down over last year as the coronavirus pandemic has canceled many people’s travel plans, Yellowstone reported more than 39,000 visitors the week of June 11-16, which was 75% of visitation during the same period last year.
But it’s business as usual when it comes to park officials warning visitors against putting themselves in danger while trying to get that perfect shot or selfie with the park’s fauna. “Wildlife in Yellowstone National Park are wild,” park officials reminded guests in its press release on the latest incident.
Last summer saw a series of dangerous animal encounters in zoos and parks across the country.
That included another Yellowstone bison, in fact, after a viral video showed a 9-year-old girl getting flipped into the air by one after a group of 50 or 60 people surrounded the animal for about 20 minutes in the Old Faithful Geyser area. The child was treated and released.
A woman was clawed by a jaguar at an Arizona zoo in March 2019 after she leaned over the barrier to take a selfie with the animal. That same jaguar had clawed another man the year before as the man reached over the barrier to take a video of the big cat.
A woman named Myah Autry was arrested and hit with criminal-trespass charges last fall for going inside the Bronx Zoo’s lion enclosure, and dancing and taunting a male lion. The encounter was caught on camera, and she later shared clips of it to her own Instagram US:FB page.
Many people are risking life and limb to get that perfect selfie — and with some tragic results. An estimated 259 people died while taking selfies worldwide between 2011 and 2017, according to 2018 study. Most were men, with a mean age of 22 years old, with drowning as the leading cause of selfie deaths from picture takers falling off boats or getting swept away by waves. Transport — or taking pictures in front of moving vehicles — joins fires and falls among the leading causes of selfie deaths.
Last July, a 19-year-old American tourist fell to his death while taking a selfie on a cliff in New South Wales, Australia. A couple fell 800 feet to their death in October 2018 while taking a selfie from a Yosemite National Park overlook.
The social-media-fueled obsession with getting that perfect shot has spurred a selfie accessories market expected to hit $6.4 billion by 2025.
