Some of it is unexpected - for example, caps and water bottles being blown off of people's heads or off of handrails into Mammoth Hot Springs - but some of it is just plain stupid (for example, crowds of people encircling a bear to take photographs or people walking up to the elk to pet them.)
All of this happens despite the presence of park personnel continuously walking through all of the areas that have been turned into exhibits, and despite everyone having at least a cell phone camera to take photographs from a safe, non-polluting distance.
There are in addition many more incidents that don't get covered beyond the local paper: Bison gorings, people falling off cliffs, a guy got trampled by a moose. A little outside the park, but a local guy got electrocuted by a bear that had itself been electrocuted by a fallen power pole. A party of school girls were "pinned down" for several hours by a black bear. It's endless. These are just the incidents I recall off the top of my head, besides the nationally reported stuff like Canadians traipsing through Grand Prismatic Spring and various people beinv eaten by bears.
Also check out the videos of park and fish+game staff using explosives to dispose of moose carcases in the field.
I was wondering the backstory behind this sign, and apparently someone actually did this.
"What started out as an apparently well-intentioned move by tourists who placed a young bison in the back of their vehicle because they believed it looked cold, has ended in no small sadness.
On Monday, officials at Yellowstone National Park revealed that the calf had to be put down after being rejected by its herd."
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/yellowstone...
Another one I remembered since posting the list above was the tourists who broke several toilets in the park due to standing on the seats. There are now signs, some in Chinese, in the park's public toilets advising not to stand on them..
Source: http://www.jhnewsandguide.com/news/environmental/when-east-m...
Amusingly, one of my early memories of newspaper reading was that a lady had won a lawsuit for breaking her ankle that way (yes, in the US, why do you ask? ;-)
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2015/07/2...
Happened at least 5 times in 2015:
http://www.yellowstonepark.com/teen-gored-bison/
Apparently they hit you when you turn your back to them and they will toss you in the air. Sometimes more than once.
> On June 2, an Australian man was taking photos within five feet of a 2,000-pound bison in the same area when the bull suddenly charged him, hooking him with its horns and tossing him into the air several times. Incredibly, the man lived.
Not surprised people ignore the warnings about staying back 25 meters. At Algonquin park in Ontario, Canada we came across a giant male moose and everyone was staying well back. Then a Chinese tourist family walked right up to it within a few feet to take a photo. A man attempted yelling at them to stay back but they ignored the warning. Nothing happened but it really bothered me, mostly because they entirely disrespected the animal.
http://www.ktvh.com/2017/01/men-sentenced-for-walking-on-gra...
Links, for those interested:
https://smile.amazon.com/dp/1570984506/
https://play.google.com/store/books/details?id=U5uLAgAAQBAJ
Interview with the author: http://www.yellowstonepark.com/unnatural-deaths-yellowstone-...
It's one thing to take a calculated risk and die because the gamble didn't pay off or you made some error in your risk calculus. It's quite another to just ignore the clearest possible warnings that something is a Bad Idea That Will Kill You. I don't really feel any sympathy in the latter case.
Soaking is a great idea if done carefully. There are several places in YNP where it is allowed, officially or semi-officially.
In fact, every time I visit Yellowstone NP (like 5 times a year) it strikes me how silly it is that people are kept and are happy to stay on boardwalks and paved roads. They might just as well watch the BBC documentary and save everyone the trouble. If you are outdoors you should hike, swim, wade and sense the warm thermal waters. YNP is the most regulated and civilized park I know. I think this is sad.
Driving to Yellowstone on an interstate is probably more dangerous anyway.
Allowing millions of tourists from around the world, many without any respect or knowledge of how to conduct themselves in the wild in such a way as to leave minimal impact, would lead to a rapid and permanent destruction of the very park features that make the area worthy of preservation and visiting.
Your perspective on things doesn't work in a world with 7+ billion people who are increasingly able to travel to popular destinations. The trail and boardwalk restrictions in the park make it possible for all visitors to enjoy park features in perpetuity rather than all features being destroyed by a single selfish generation.
Why can't we extend that sympathy to adults who also might not been fully aware of the consequences as well?
... as does "play stupid games, win stupid prizes".
Death for someone attempting to seek escape and joy in their life seems like an excessive punishment - mockery isn't necessary.
I feel terrible for what happened in this instance, but there have been a handful of moments in my life where looking back I suppose they could of also ended similarly. Don't regret them in the slightest though - they enriched my entire life.
It was only a few weeks ago people were celebrating Amazon's philosophy of if a mistake is made, it's never the individuals fault it's the systems fault. Could we not also perhaps apply this philosophy to safety notices/warnings/education in this tragedy?
Sure. But part of the reason for that is that those actions are risks.
> seems like an excessive punishment
I didn't see any kind of punishment in the story. I saw a consequence for an action. He didn't die because he broke the rules. He died because he made a fatal mistake by slipping into a hot, acidic pool.
> I feel terrible for what happened in this instance
I feel sorry for the people that he hurt as an indirect result of his actions, but not for the guy himself.
> it's never the individuals fault it's the systems fault. Could we not also perhaps apply this philosophy to safety notices/warnings/education in this tragedy?
I strongly disagree with Amazon's philosophy, in that case. From what I've heard, there are many, many posted warnings, marked trails, and rangers patrolling to educate people. The park's almost 9,000 km^2. At some point, you've got to consider that a best effort was made to provide guidance for safety, and anything that happens as a result of going against that guidance is on whoever did it. He died because he did something stupid, not because the signs/rangers/trails/his 2nd grade teacher didn't stop him.
It has been established in court that the National Parks System is not required to make National Parks safe (families of dead tourists suing for more fences and safety rails and so on) because an intrinsic part of the value of the parks is exposure to nature without a glass wall in front of it. A few people dying horribly is a price the rest of us are willing to pay for that value.
Wholeheartedly agreed, but getting close to an acidic geyser is way beyond "a little risky".
I agree. But some people lack the ability to judge the risk/reward ratio. For those people, we have signs--which unfortunately treats all risky behaviour the same.
> Could we not also perhaps apply this philosophy to safety notices/warnings/education in this tragedy?
There's a whole industry for that. For example, GM/Ford have dashboard cutouts they use for trials against them. They are example dashboards with warnings for every single thing their lawyers could think of. At some point, users just ignore the warnings. Some users never look at any. You can't get everyone to cooperate, accidents are going to happen. The point at which users ignore warnings, or how they respond to them in general are being actively studied.
This isn't a complex sociopolitical scene like an underclass of drug-users trying to escape from their hellish reality, where cause and effect are hard to disentangle. It's people on holiday assuming that they're special and the safety signage doesn't apply to them. It's pretty straight-forward.
I am not sure how far I would take that line of thought, but I do think there's something to it.
It improves their self being because they can imagine in their heads using hindsight and a loaded story they would never be that stupid.
AKA Darwin awards.
Hopefully at some stage culture can wipe out the attitude and replace it with something better then using they deaths of the uneducated poor and mental ill for our betterment.
The person in that story was not mentally ill, beyond being stupid and refusing to heed plainly obvious warnings, and there's no evidence he was uneducated.
There's a difference. There's nothing noble or innocent about being selfish and stubborn and refusing to heed warnings meant to keep people safe who aren't familiar with the serious dangers in a place like Yellowstone.
Are you saying that people deliberately choose to be "selfish and stubborn" to the point of getting killed, and yet this is not a form of mental illness?
For another, it promotes a sense of shared identity of rule-followers, by criticizing people who break rules, which promotes pride in following rules and prevents people from breaking them. This is important because when I read a sign telling me to do something it is necessary that I trust the person who wrote the sign if I am to obey.
But like all forms of humorous entertainment it is not as amusing when we deliberate on it for too long. And there is a pernicious feedback effect of callousness which can arise from the sense of collective identity mentioned in the second paragraph. The positive effects of such activities seem to be best utilized when many cultural mores are practiced together to smooth out the "errors".
Better?