A woman who approached a buffalo in Yellowstone National Park was stabbed by the animal on Monday, according to park officials.
The unnamed woman received a stab wound and other injuries and was taken to the Eastern Idaho Regional Medical Center. Her condition has not been reported and it is unclear whether she survived. Park officials did not immediately respond to requests for more details on Wednesday, and a medical center spokesman said he had no additional information to provide.
Park officials said in a press release on Tuesday that this was the first reported episode in 2022 involving a park visitor who “threatened a buffalo” and that the animal reacted by hitting the man.
The incident began Monday as a bison was walking near a promenade in the Black Sand Basin, about two miles northwest of Old Faithful, and a woman described as 25 and from Ohio approached him. She came within 10 feet of the animal, and two other people were 25 yards away, park officials said.
The buffalo stabbed the woman and threw her 10 feet in the air, officials said, adding that they were still investigating the incident.
Park officials have repeatedly warned that animals need to be given ample space, tips they often issue for bison, bears and wolves.
“The wildlife in Yellowstone National Park is wild and can be dangerous when approached,” the park said. “When an animal is near a campsite, trail, promenade, parking lot or in a developed area, give it a place.”
Yellowstone recommends that visitors stand more than 25 yards from large animals, including bison, moose, sheep and deer, and at least 100 yards from bears and wolves.
The buffalo, which can be six feet tall, weigh more than 2,000 pounds and run three times faster than a human, has injured more people in Yellowstone than any other animal, the park said.
In recent years, a number of people have been seriously injured by bison and other animals in and around Yellowstone.
In an incident filmed on video in 2019, a buffalo attacked and hit a 9-year-old girl in the head while she was trying to escape. The following year, a woman approaching a buffalo was knocked to the ground and injured by the animal. Last April, a guide fishing near the park was fatally attacked by a large grizzly bear, which authorities said may have been protecting a food source.
And a few months later, a woman was sentenced to four days in prison and banned for a year from the park for not moving away from the path of the grizzly bear and her cubs.
The bison have been the subject of debate around Yellowstone over fears of overgrazing. There were more than 5,000 bison roaming the park last year, and wildlife and tribal officials agreed in December that about 900 bison from the park would be slaughtered, shot by hunters or quarantined at the Stevens Creek capture facility. the service.
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