The tourists are now facing criminal charges.
Some people are curious why the calf couldn’t be sent to a wildlife sanctuary or bison ranch…here’s Yellowstone’s statement:
I 100% agree with the NPS stance on this: the tourists who did this were well meaning idiots.
Also based on NPS statement sounds very possible the calf was already abandoned by its mother if the tourists weren’t attacked when rescuing it. Again, well meaning but ignorant people.
Good god, just reading the comments is something I need to learn. Who knew that this was all liberals and Obama’s fault. :rolleyes:
Those people are so stupid. This must be Trump’s fault.
Well, the calf did get cold, room temperature cold, according to today’s Fox News web page. No link, but at the time I write this, front page center…
Another way to look at it is that they deprived a predator of a meal, which may have saved it’s starving young.
Maybe these dumb tourists should have been left out overnight to see how cold they would get.
The stupidity of humans.
I seem to remember reading a thread on the Dope, in which a person from Alaska, who was with the park services up there, fielded a tourist complaint about “Why don’t you spray more? There are too many mosquitoes!”
And another in which an Alaska resident was asked by a tourist “Where are the mammoths?” Said Alaskan replied they had been moved to the other side of the mountains, because they were too smelly. Tourist was satisfied. Duh.
The Anchorage paper posted some of those sorts of questions a few years ago. Funny stuff. “How far above sea level is Juneau?”, from a tour boat patron standing on the dock, was one of my favorites. I was once asked where the road to Nome was, and gave directions. I ran into a tourist on the path near our home, who was standing about ten feet from a moose that was browsing on a tree. “Do you think I can just walk up and pet him?” I said “Sure, just give me a five minute head start.”
The Yellowstone tourist was French-Canadian. He was fined $110 and must appear in court June 2.
I’m sure the tourist learned his lesson and feels terrible, but what does Yellowstone have to do? Staple their wildlife regulations to visitors’ foreheads as soon as they enter the park? Too many people confuse national parks with petting zoos.
Bolding mine.
I believe they already hand out guidelines when you enter. Some people are gigantic fucking idiots. Mind you, I am not against your suggestion in general terms IF we can determine a means for finding the gigantic fucking idiots. I do not want or need the regulations attached to my face.
Perhaps they should have kept the bison alive and levied all costs for keeping the animal against the tourists. After all, they went out and got it. You get it, it’s yours! To pay for anyway. Then, after all the months of quarantine, they can pay for the transportation of the animal to the new refuge. After that, a lifetime of charges for its keep. Perhaps a few stories like that, with real monetary penalties, would help people learn to keep their fucking hands to themselves.
There’s a camera, two actually, that keep a 24/7 video watch on a falcon nesting box in our city. Several years ago the power company the box is located on changed it a little, making it ever harder for young to fall out. Sensitive types were distressed that some young falcons had taken a tumble before their first flight, and them some first flighters fell to their death. The company, on it’s cam site online, trys to remind people that falcons are wild animals, and that a mortality rate of 50 % is only average. But some disconnected with nature types still stress over the poor baby predators.
Well, at least they have a story from their vacation that they can tell whenever anybody mentions Yellowstone or serves veal.
While this was a really bad idea, it’s probably worth remembering as noted above that the calf may well have already been abandoned by the herd when the tourists ‘rescued’ it. (And, yeah, it probably prevented some predator from an easy meal, so there’s also that.)
Bison Freeze. And you thought it was just a little dog.
I grew up on a cattle farm and sometimes for no apparent reason a mother rejects her offspring. We bottle raised a couple like this: as far as I know the calves grew into healthy animals, but for whatever reason mom just decided she wanted to do something else. Probably something their spidey senses detect that we can’t, or perhaps the mother cow isn’t producing enough milk (very rarely a problem since many if not most modern cows are bred to overproduce milk), or perhaps some cows are just bitches sometimes.
Dogs and cats reject as well, but usually you can see the difference (unformed leg or unhealthy runt or whatever).
Oh my God, that was me. My folks workkamped at Skagway one summer and my dad loved dreaming up straight faced answers to stupid questions. He was also asked if they took American money.
350F for about 4 hours oughtta do it. Buffalo* is excellent fare. It sounds like the calf had already been rejected by the herd? As good a guess as any.
This kind of behavior isn’t unusual, farmers have told tales of townies pounding on their door complaining that the cattle are getting rained on, and it’s “animal abuse”.
Good Lord this country is fucked.
- Yes, we’re all aware they are technically Bison. Nobody gives a shit. Enough already.
My father, many years ago, bought a house in a new development. They had put in a new lake and we were some of the first people there. My father bought some baby ducks to raise so he could let them live at the lake.
Come the next year or so when the birds were laying eggs, people were trying to put the eggs back that the birds had pushed out of the nest. Well of course wild birds don’t want to be screwed with, especially when they are nesting, so the they would honk and snap at people. But they were still worried about the eggs people kept putting them back. Then people started complaining about the birds so much the county came and had them all removed.
I guess it really is that hard to understand not to fuck with wild animals. :rolleyes: