Think Your Job is Hard? Try Being a Yellowstone Park Ranger

Tourist season is in full swing. Our national parks across the country are bursting at the seems with visitors. In fact, this year may be a record breaking year for tourists in many national parks.

According to the Flathead Beacon

The park had over 483,000 recreation visits last month, up 11% from May 2019.

So far, Yellowstone is having its busiest year in recent memory. The park recorded over 658,000 visits from January through May, the most since 594,000 visits during that time in 2016.

With larger amounts of visitors flocking to Yellowstone National park, the chances of people encountering animals increases. Videos of idiot tourists, a.k.a "tourons," continue to pop up on the internet. These videos show people treating the park like a petting zoo. Often times leading to tourons getting injured by the wild animals.

Just this past weekend, we reported on a woman getting injured by a bison.

A hiker in YNP having an "encounter" with a bison. The details of the incident are a bit light but the 30-year-old woman suffered significant injuries and ended up being flown to an Idaho hospital to receive treatment for her injuries.

There is really only one line of defense between the tourons and the critters. That is the Yellowstone National Park Rangers. These guys diligently attempt to keep the people and animals a safe distance apart. Considering the giant numbers of visitors and animals, it has got to be one of the toughest jobs in the world. Take the following video for example. A video surfaced online recently, showing a YNP park ranger attempting to haze a giant grizzly bear away from tourists and traffic. The bear was not pleased by the rangers attempts and charged the ranger. Note how calm, cool and collected the ranger was. Even as a giant bear tries to run him down.