While we were engaged in a morning of photographing these marvelous creatures, a tour bus pulled up to the next turn out. The doors opened and a hoard of tourists spilled out and covered the river bottom. Actually, blame probably lies with the tour director for this bus who neglected their duty to tell their group to be careful around wild animals. These are wild animals and these tourists were extremely lucky that no one was hurt. What I didn't get a picture of was a couple of women who were running up to the Bull Elk who was trying to round up his herd. I would guess that they were no more than 20 feet from this Bull when they were stopped by a shout from a person behind me. Unfortunately, I doubt if they understood anything that he said. They did stop, but took their pictures before retreating. Yes, the cows were herded across the road by these tourists, though I doubt that they realized it.

The park regulation do call for all visitors to keep 25 yards from ALL wild animals except Bear and Wolves. They are required to maintain a distance of 100 yards from them. Even though the distance is foreshortened by the use of a telephoto lens, it does look like they are well within 25 yards.

What probably saved these tourists from a head on meeting with an enraged Bull was the fact that the Bull was rounding up a couple of other escapees. No doubt he would have come looking for these after he had rounded up the other two, except that these had been driven so far away that he could not abandon the rest of his herd as there was another Bull just across the river.