Tourists Kidnapp Bison Calf Because It Was Cold

Yeah, its as stupid as it sounds.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/yellowstone-tourists-put-baby-bison-172427744.html

http://www.eastidahonews.com/2016/0...son-calf-is-cold-so-they-put-it-in-their-car/

 

"I can't believe someone would leave their wildlife unattended like that!"

https://www.reddit.com/r/nottheonio...wstone_tourists_put_bison_calf_in_car/d35jenb

^If you press that link there's a lot more stupid.

 

I honestly do not know what to say.

 

And in some articles, a lot of people are commenting that we shouldn't be mad at these guys because they were just trying to help. But good intentions or not, amateur wildlife rescue can be bad for the rescuer and bad for the animal. People making those comments would probably be saying something different if the guys got gored by momma bison, or if baby bison got hurt or killed in the rescue attempt.

 

To me this highlights the continued problem of extreme disassociation with reality that we have built into our society with regard to anywhere that isn't human managed. It's not unreasonable either; most of us live in areas where we couldn't find a patch of land unowned and unmanaged by someone or some organisation. So many who come from a very urban background are brought up with the idea that mankind owns the world; everywhere is managed and controlled and anywhere public is managed and the animals tame and generally docile and safe.

I mean we live in such a litigious age who would let people walk without a fence in areas with dangerous wild animals? I mean they'd be sued and never open their doors again!



To some Yellowstone is just a bigger zoo as zoos are their prime real world connection to the wildness. Whilst documentaries are always in far off exotic places not at home.




I can see the logic - I can even see the good side in that these people did not act with malice nor hostile intent. But yes in the end its not the best course of action and indeed not only dangerous but damaging (especially since I suspect that finding the original parent of the calf might prove difficult)). I'm actually surprised that they could get that close to get the calf into their car in the first place without being attacked by either calf or mother. Then again I know that deer will often leave very young calves alone and the calves will lay down to hide so do bison do the same?



In the end the only way to solve this is education; but sadly education systems are almost totally focused upon the urban-skill set (at least up until you leave standard education). And most of those education systems are not even ideal for that and focus more upon memorizing and passing tests than upon actual skill building.

 

Which reminds me. How the hell did they get past mom and the rest of the herd in the first place

 

Yellowstone tourists put bison calf in car, spurring warning
As stated in the previous post, this article also states that the calf was euthanized because rangers could not get it back with the herd. While I understand not being able to get it back and I hold the original tourists responsible for the death, I also do not understand why the calf was not placed in a captive environment. Surely lots of accredited zoos (or other bison facilities) would want a wild-born Yellowstone bison to add to their herd gene pool.

 

I suppose because the calf would have had to have been hand reared before being introduced to any new group; which is not a small feat in itself. I suppose also the park might not have thought along those lines; they had a calf that was rejected and was doing to die and thus having it put down seemed the best option to them. I don't know if they even have on-site facilities to keep one or a hierarchy structure that would allow someone trained to work with it to raise it on site.

 

Putting things down seems like Fish & Game's go-to option for...well, anything these days. A couple of years ago a couple of mountain lion cubs were found in a residential area of Half Moon Bay, California. Rather than adding those genes to the captive population, they opted for the lethal option.

I just saw this story and I find the whole thing mystifying. There are reasons why Man does not belong in the jungle.

 

I suppose it possibly links into connectivity between different organisations and how that filters down through an organisation.

Thus the team out in the wilds dealing with things might well not even realise that there is the option of linking up with the conservation sector.

Another angle is cost - even if you pass over wildlife you've got to have some cost in care and keeping until the handover and some people feel that any hand over is like handing over property/assets and thus they want to see some gain for them [assuming conservation isn't enough for them]. As a result putting down might be seen as the simple, easy cheap and quick solution as oppose to fussing with paperwork and the like.



On the subject of paperwork it might also be something that gets bogged down in it heavily to avoid people harvesting the wild animals for private collections; or having incidents like this become commonplace (ergo loophole abuse). And of course paperwork involves time and cost.

 

This is symptomatic of a larger problem with the parks and visitors. For example
Tourist Bros Stomp On Yellowstone National Park's Grand Prismatic Spring

or another incident
http://www.pe.com/articles/death-802793-valley-national.html

 

Their stamping on the Spring makes me think of all the people who have died falling into the thermal features at Yellowstone...usually they were doing something they shouldn't have.

Also mucking with the hot springs in any way can actually cause severe damage to them, one good example is the Morning Glory Pool, with all the trash that's been thrown into it the water temperature has been altered and now the whole spring is turning brown.

 

There's a whole book about all of the people who have died at Yellowstone in various ways. Stuff like this is definitely common. I've never been to Yellowstone, but I've spoken to people who have and apparently you can see idiot behavior on the regular. Sometimes people know their behavior is wrong, but they do it anyway out of selfishness. (like that dolphin that died after being passed around on the beach, I'm sure most of those people knew it was bad for the dolphin but they just couldn't pass up the photo opportunity)

Other times, people are just stupid or ignorant. People who grow up in urban or suburban environments don't always have much exposure to or education on unmanaged nature. To them, it's just something in nature documentaries that take place in Africa or something. (of course, I'm sure the people doing stupid stuff at Yellowstone would do stupid things if they went to Africa or something) I don't really know what can be done, I've heard that Yellowstone passes out pamphlets and puts warning signs everywhere, including visual ones so non-English speakers get the message. So maybe a lot of the people doing stupid stuff are of the "I know this is wrong but I'm gonna do it anyway" variety. I mean, when I was in middle school we went on a field trip to a nature park during alligator mating season (there were gators all over the place) and no one was dumb enough to bother the gators. (and believe me, middle schoolers are pretty dumb so I don't know how adults end up doing stuff like this)

 

It was already dead from the beginning.

 

To be fair to Orca a lot of news sites failed to say that.

 

Okay, but I never saw that thread and I don't know if Orca did.

 

I know. I own a copy.

 

Really? None of the news articles said that. Guess that's better than "death by tourist selfies". Now I feel stupid. Oh well, there's no shortage of examples of human behavior hurting wild animals.