As if we needed another reminder to stay on the boardwalk, a bison wandered into a hot spring at Yellowstone National Park last weekend and died in front of horrified tourists. Witnesses say the male bison entered the Grand Prismatic Spring and never made it out.
Grand Prismatic Spring, Yellowstone’s largest hot spring, is 200-330 feet in diameter, more than 121 feet deep, and can be up to 189 degrees Fahrenheit. One witness says the bison briefly entered, stepped out, but then re-entered the thermal spring, eventually becoming stuck.
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“Unfortunately, I witnessed the bison drowning in the Grand Prismatic Springs early yesterday morning,” wrote Louise Howard in a post made to the Yellowstone Through The Lens Facebook group. “It took a few steps into a shallow area to the right of the pool, it turned around and stepped out very quickly. It stood for a moment, then turned back towards the spring and stepped into a deeper section then couldn’t get out despite trying its best.”
Howard shared photos of the incident. Other witnesses shared videos.
Watch the bison as it enters the hot spring here (viewer discretion advised):
Another Yellowstone visitor, Katie Hirtzel, came across the bison after it had died, and she wasn’t sure what she was looking at initially. She posted her photos asking if anyone knew. After others clued her in, she wrote in a separate post: “I unexpectedly walked up on this poor [bison] about 12 hours after he went in. Pretty shocking to see something like that at the end of a long day in the park.”
Header stock image by Megan Brady/Getty Images