Elk vs. Photographer

[gerisullivan]

Eek. Seven minutes long and worth it to the end. I bet it felt like 7 hours to the photographer.

Update: Embedding isn't working for me, despite multiple approaches and attempts. You can see it at http://unofficialnetworks.com/elk-vs-photographer-great-smoky-mountains-national-park-126453/

With a tip o'the link hat to Jay Lake's link salad.

Edited to add: The UK Huffington Post has additional info from both the videographer and the photographer in the video.

Comments

[gerisullivan.livejournal.com]

I was very sad to read this, but feel better about the decision of the park staff after reading the article in the Asheville Citizen-Times. In particular, the scene shown in the video was an escalation of previous issues they'd had with the elk and especially:

Officials aggressively hazed — meaning they tried to re-train the elk to fear humans — since they learned of the incident with York. They used bean bag guns and firecrackers so the elk would associate people with scary, loud sounds instead of potato chips.

“This fall, there have been several elk that have become food-conditioned,” Soehn said. “We have reports of visitors who have been feeding them and the elk have been getting closer and closer. ... that one potato chip does make a big difference.”

Officials also darted and moved this elk, but he “came back to that same spot,” she said. “Unfortunately for that elk, he was just not responding to that aversion.”

Fie on humans who deliberately feed wild animals this way. It doesn't help either species.