Yellowstone National Park is home to some of the most unique landscapes that can be found in our country. It’s so popular that the National Park Service (NPS) says that more than four million people a year travel to the park to watch wildlife, hike the stunning trails, and to get a glimpse of the park’s stunning prismatic pools.
Inevitably, someone will behave badly while visiting the park and ignore the rules and regulations that are posted all over. Sometimes this decision can end in tragedy, and the park has seen 75 deaths since 2007, according to local law firm Beck, Amsden, & Staples PLLC.
But visitors don’t have to die in order for their rule-breaking to count as a tragedy, since a lot of the regulations that are put into place around the park are done to protect the landscape itself, as well as the animals who call it home.
Now, an Instagram video posted by @blueridertattoo110 is going viral after she caught footage of two women leaving the boardwalk to wander near the prismatic pools. The video was picked up by USA Today and other outlets, and the publications are working to inform the public about just how much damage they can do to the natural beauty of the park when they go where they aren’t allowed.
The Women Were Caught Walking on ‘Bacterial Mats’
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According to the NPS, the area surrounding the prismatic pools at Yellowstone getting their stunning colors from the bacterial mats, which are created by a bacterium called Thermocrinis. The bacteria connect into filaments, which then entwine, forming the colorful and sturdy-looking surface around these pools.
That’s exactly where the two women videoed by Tanya Saueressig were walking, which prompted her to post her video. “I spotted these two ignorant tourists today at the Grand Prismatic Spring in Yellowstone National Park and it made me so furious that I literally had tears in my eyes,” she captioned the clip. “A bison tragically fell through the crust and died in the scalding hot water just last year and yet here these two geniuses think the warnings don’t apply to them.”
Saueressig went on to explain why she was so upset, writing, “It’s against the rules to get off the boardwalks, it’s disrespectful to the park, it’s disregarding nature itself, and it destroys the fragile ecosystem of the bacterial mats.”
The crust, she explained, is made up of microscopic organisms. Saueressig said that walking on them can create permanent scars.” She ended her post by saying that she thought people who did stuff like this should receive a lifetime ban from the park, adding that she had reported the incident to authorities as well.