As you’ve probably gathered from some of my recent posts, I tend to aimlessly wander around the intarwebbe from time to time. In those ramblings, I usually find nothing of note. Occasionally, however, I find stuff that I really think is worth passing on. The latest such finding is the site National Parks Traveler, which discusses various goings-on in America’s national parks. After reading a few days worth of posts there, I look to the sidebar and see what categories I have to look in on the site. Out of curiosity, I decide to see what the Missteps in the Park category holds. Among the lost tourist details is this little helpful hint on how NOT to behave in a national park.
So, what’s at play here? Are we talking communing up close with nature, or a building case of child neglect?
I’d opt for the latter. I mean, really, where are the parents and what are they thinking? Do they have a death wish for their kids? Any bets that if the kids wound up being gored, which they didn’t, that the parents would sue the National Park Service?
A frightening number of folks every year tend to forget that national parks are not city parks, that the animals they see are wild and consider the park their home and that every one else is a potential invader or predator.
Proof of that came just the other day when a 16-year-old from South Korea got a tad too close to a moose and her two newborn calves in Grand Teton
National Park. How close? Within ten feet, a claustrophobic amount of space to a mamma moose, who not only quickly chased down this youth but kicked him in the head.
No word on the youth’s condition. But the moose and her calves are fine.
Oh, about that bison picture? You can read what other folks think of it by checking out the Island Park (Idaho) News web site. As for the negligent parents, they obviously didn’t pay too much attention to the handouts they received when they arrived at Yellowstone National Park. Among them is this wonderful, brightly colored, perhaps even somewhat humorous, notice:
[tags]National parks, Park safety[/tags]