Watch This Rutting Bull Elk Display Baffle Tourists at Yellowstone National Park

You can always tell the difference between tourists and what I like to refer to as day or weekend vacationing Wyomingites. For one, we generally can identify our wildlife species with a quick glance. For instance, out-of-staters often refer to bison as buffalo (which depending on which book or online source you read will claim that is okay), however, we know better. Tourists often refer to elk as deer, which technically isn't wrong, considering the elk is in the deer family.

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The latter misnomer was the case of a recent video posted YouTube channel, ViralHog. The footage is titled, "Onlookers Hold up Traffic to Watch Deer’s Display", but it is clearly a bull elk in the video.

The 38-second video was posted today (October 19th, 2021), but the event actually took place on Monday, September 20th, 2021.The caption for the video hilariously reads:

Shot at Mammoth Hot Springs in Yellowstone National Park. The ranger soundtrack is great.

The videographer was sure on point with that caption. Listening to the park ranger scold a tourist (maybe plural?), made the video worth the watch alone, but I do understand why anyone would be intrigued. I've personally never seen a bulk elk do this before, but apparently it is quite common when they are "in the rut", and it is definitely rutting season right now.

This video should be shown on educational television, like National Geographic, for showing the accurate rutting elk display, but it should also be shown so tourists know that the park rangers are out there doing their jobs, and that you will get caught if you're not following the rules in our national parks.