Yellowstone Bison Gores California Woman After Getting Too Close, Officials Say
OutdoorHub Reporters 06.11.18
After getting too close to a wild American bison in Yellowstone National Park, a woman was gored in the thigh and needed to be transported to a nearby hospital, park officials said in a statement.
Kim Hancock, 59, who resides from Santa Rosa, California, was walking along a boardwalk with a crowd of people at Fountain Paint Pot in the Lower Geyser Basin when the bison became agitated and charged.
Woman gored by bison after crowd gets too close: https://t.co/FOQRi3QrET. pic.twitter.com/v9IutGE5E1
— YellowstoneNPS (@YellowstoneNPS) June 7, 2018
In the statement, park officials say the crowd got increasingly closer to the animal, “at one point, people were closer than 15 feet from the bison.” The statement also notes that visitors should always keep a distance of roughly 75 feet from certain animals including bison and elk, and stay even further away from bears and wolves.
“When it crossed the boardwalk, the bison become agitated and charged the crowd, goring Hancock,” park officials said. And then, just as quickly as it all went down, the bison turned and left the area immediately.
Hancock suffered a wound to her hip, and was transported by ambulance to the Big Sky Medical Center in Big Sky, Montana, “in good condition.”
This incident falls on the heels of two elk attacks recently reported out of Yellowstone in the previous month, Fox News reports.
Second Person Injured By Elk In Accidental Encounter: https://t.co/Sin4orBt4J pic.twitter.com/7B490mnRrr
— YellowstoneNPS (@YellowstoneNPS) June 5, 2018
While bison attacks are rare – this is only the second time a park goer has been wounded by a bison this year – park officials have noted that “in a little over a month, four people have been injured by wildlife in Yellowstone.”
