Last week wildlife enthusiasts in a campground in Grand Teton National Park harassing a moose by surrounding it for photos etc caused the moose to freak out run into a picnic table and get caught in a fire grate almost severing the moose's leg. Rangers had to euthanize the moose which was injured past recovery. The cow moose had a calf that might well not make it through the winter also.
Gros Ventre Campground is in the Teton National Park, directly south of Yellowstone. (SE of Blacktail Butte and Just NE of Jackson, very close to town)
More below the squigglies
Hordes of wildlife watchers, safari companies and photographers have flocked to the Gros Ventre Campground in recent weeks to get close-up views of moose during mating season, campers say.
Wyoming Public Media
In a way this story is of the disneyesque view of wildlife we now use to entertain ourselves in our plugged in and commodified society. We view wildlife via pixels, or if we truly want a real life nature experience seeing wildlife on it's own terms, we drive to special parks where half tame large mammals come close to roads for us to view without an LCD screen between us, or not even a piece of glass if we roll down the window.
For the even more well heeled there are "Safari" companies with drivers communicating with other drivers via cell phone telling each other where an animal is viewable (from the road), some drivers are even in communication with "wolf watchers" who have access to information via the Park Service and GPS collars attached to animals giving them a huge leg up on the competition.
I'm not sure where to go with this. What the heck does one moose matter anyway. Lots of moose get eaten every winter by wolves, lots more moose calves get eaten in the first few weeks of life by grizzly and black bear, when there used to be more moose, hunters would shoot and eat them. So what if the paparazzis of nature got one?
I guess what irks me is that these very same wildlife voyeurs are increasingly influencing wildlife management policy, usually in an adverse way. In the US we have a history of scientific management of wildlife extending all the way back three quarters of a century. Scientists schooled and versed in those same careful deliberate methods are increasingly ignored, or more aptly their voices are lost in the cacophony that is what has become of public discourse.
Increasingly policy is influenced by the paparazzi, the gawkers, those same pixelated experts that love a moose to death.