When you're exploring a national park, it is perfectly understandable to become enthralled with the scenery and want to take it all in. For some, that means itching to bust out their drone and see the park from a unique vantage point.
However, most U.S. national parks prohibit the use of drones. That includes Grand Teton National Park, which has posted a number of signs alerting visitors to the regulation.
Unfortunately, that regulation didn't stop one overzealous tourist.
In a post to the popular touronsofnationalparks (@touronsofnationalparks) Instagram page, photographer Blake Johnston (@blakejohnstonfilms) captured a tourist clearly flying their drone on park grounds.
To truly capture the lack of awareness from the tourist, Johnston included a picture of one of the warning signs.
"A touron flying a drone at Mormon Row in Grand Teton National Park steps away from a sign that explicitly tells you not to fly a drone in the park," he wrote in the post.
While it's not clear whether the tourist was ever caught by park staff, the original poster revealed that they sent the video to the National Park Service. If identified, the tourist could be hit with stiff penalties. Violators of the ban can face fines of up to $5,000 and even six months in jail.
These penalties are intended to discourage drone use that could harass animals and disrupt their breeding, nesting, and feeding.
As many users in the comments section pointed out, the behavior of the tourist is high on their list of annoyances.
"Example of why we can't have nice things," vented one commenter. "This is maddening that people just don't follow the rules and then claim they didn't know. Do your homework."
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$200 or more 💰 "As a drone operator myself I can't stand people like this," wrote a second user. "Yeah I want the shot too but there's wildlife and other people's experience that you're disturbing."
"I'm fully on board with lifetime NP bans for this and many other rules violations," admitted another.
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