She decided it would be nice to take a selfie while standing close to a bison near a trail, but the bison wasn’t on board with this idea, CNN reports.
So mom and daughter turned their backs to the critter, who happened to be standing about six yards away, and attempted to take a photo, the National Park Service reported in a statement on Wednesday.
“They heard the bison’s footsteps moving toward them and started to run, but the bison caught the mother on the right side, lifted her up and tossed her with its head,” the statement read.
The woman’s family drove her from the site where she was attacked, near the Fairy Falls trailhead, to the Old Faithful Clinic in the park for treatment. She was treated for minor injuries and released.
The woman is the fifth person injured after getting a little too close for bison comfort in Yellowstone National Park this season. She’s the third person to be injured while taking a photo.
Park authorities do what they can to warn people not to get too close to animals, CNN reports.
“The family said they read the warnings in both the park literature and the signage, but saw other people close to the bison, so they thought it would be okay,” said Colleen Rawlings, a ranger in the park’s Old Faithful District. “People need to recognize that Yellowstone wildlife is wild, even though they seem docile. This woman was lucky that her injuries were not more severe.”
This is especially true when you consider the fact that the American bison (Bison bison) can weigh up to 2,200 lbs., and run up to 40 miles an hour, National Geographic reports.
Just think of them as four-legged brick walls with two-foot-long horns.
They are the heaviest land animals in North America.
Authorities caution visitors not to go within 25 yards of bison or other large animals, but several other people this year wound up being injured by bison this year because they stood to close.
In May, a Taiwanese foreign exchange student visiting the park with her host family sustained serious but not life-threatening injuries when she was attacked by a bison, Digital Journal reported.
The girl, 16, was standing with her host family and a group of other people about three to six feet from the huge creature when the accident occurred.
When she turned her back on the animal to have her photo taken, it took a couple of steps closer and gored her. She was rushed to the Old Faithful Clinic and then airlifted to a hospital.
In early June, a 62-year-old Australian man also got too close, venturing to within three to five feet of one bison and was injured when it charged and tossed him into the air several times, park officials told CNN. He was released from a hospital later that evening.
Another incident occurred on June 23 when a Georgia woman, 19, was heading with friends to their car after a late-night swim in the Firehole River when they noticed a bison lying ten feet way. It charged the woman and tossed her into the air. Fortunately, her injuries were mild, according to the park service.
Barely a week later, another woman from Georgia wound up in the hospital after being attacked by a bison as she hiked on Storm Point Trail. As the woman, 68, walked past the bison, it charged and gored her. She was transported by helicopter to a hospital outside the park, CNN reports.
There are other creatures at the park who also need their space, and tourists should take the time to familiarize themselves with the park’s regulations.
Nearly 5,000 bison live in the park, and it’s the only place in the U.S. where bison have lived continuously since prehistoric times, according to CNN.
