Don’t Pet the Fluffy Cows

I watched an hour-long program about human and wild animal encounters in our national parks, mostly in Yellowstone. I’m sure most everyone has seen a video or two of a bison tossing a tourist into the air when the tourist got too close. In fact, memes and t-shirts have widely appeared with the warning: “Don’t pet the fluffy cows.” "Fluffy cows" might sound cute, but in Yellowstone, it’s code for 2,000-pound bison that can flip your car if they feel like it.

So, selfies with a bison are not a great idea. And then you see videos of tourists surrounding bull elk (with pointy antlers), approaching a moose, or trying to pet a bear. These are all CLMs (career-limiting maneuvers), as my late friend John suggested.

Tourists can be pretty foolish when it comes to interacting with animals in our national parks. But to be fair, if my twenty-something-year-old buddies and I had ended up in Yellowstone instead of on Main Street in East Helena, Montana, after leaving Frank’s Place bar following several rounds of drinks, we probably would have tried to pet the fluffy cows or take a selfie with one.

—Mitchell Hegman