A tourist has drawn the internet's scorn after a pet seemingly masquerading as a service animal terrorized wildlife at one of the United States' most iconic national parks.
In a video shared by Reggie's Pit Crew (@reggies.pitcrew), you see an elk in the iconic landscape of Glacier National Park in Montana.
The camera pans to the right, and you see a dog, mere feet from the elk, barely being restrained by its owner, before slipping free of their grasp and taking off after the animal across the meadow toward nearby trees.
"Sad and disgusted by not 1, but 2 misrepresented service animals getting loose and chasing off wildlife in Glacier National Park," the caption read. "This is a disgrace to people who actually require task trained service animals to enjoy the parks, and makes it harder for their legitimate service animals to work." They noted they'd notified both the park service and park rangers about the incidents.
It can't be overstated how dangerous wildlife is in national parks, especially for pets. In a case like this, the dog has triggered a prey response from the elk, but it outweighs the dog by somewhere around 400 to 600 pounds. If it decided to turn on the dog to defend itself, the dog could wind up seriously injured or dead.
On top of that, Glacier is in grizzly bear country, and if, in chasing the elk, a pet finds itself crossing paths with a bear or wolves, it could go poorly for them, as well as putting the wildlife at risk of injury or even being put down.
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At Glacier National Park, the rules state that pets must be kept on a leash six feet or shorter at all times or physically restrained or caged, are not permitted on trails or in the backcountry, and can't be on lake shores or in buildings.
Commenters were quick to rip the visitor's behavior.
"Wtf," one said. "They look like they don't even care it ran off."
"That's not a service animal. At all," said another. "That's not even a trained dog with any recall."
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"I'm a guide at a national park," said a third. "I've hardly seen any rangers outside of visitor centers or entrance gates this summer. Incidents like this are on the rise and there are no rangers to watch for it [and] intervene."
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