Tourists from Yellowstone Park do some really dumb things when it comes to wildlife, but this takes the cake. From East Idaho News:
Karen Richardson of Victor, Idaho, was one of several parents chaperoning a group of fifth-graders on a field trip to Yellowstone this week.
Richardson says on Monday, as students were being taught at Lamar Buffalo Ranch, a father and son pulled up at the ranger station with a bison calf in their SUV.
“They were demanding to speak with a ranger,” Richardson tells EastIdahoNews.com. “They were seriously worried that the calf was freezing and dying.”
Park rangers, who were no doubt befuddled, made the foreign tourists show them where they got the calf and returned it to the herd. Unfortunately, the herd rejected the newborn calf when it returned:
In this case, park rangers tried repeatedly to reunite the newborn bison calf with the herd. These efforts failed. The bison calf was later euthanized because it was abandoned and causing a dangerous situation by continually approaching people and cars along the roadway.
See the East Idaho News report below and remember—bison are dangerous animals. They can run three times faster than humans and at Yellowstone Park, they are responsible for more attacks than bears:
According to a 2000 study, Yellowstone’s bison are actually more dangerous than its bears. The study found that bison had charged people 81 times over 22 years, killing two. The park’s grizzly bears, meanwhile had injured 30 and killed two, the AP reported