Bison Dies After Fall Into Yellowstone Hot Spring

Warning: nature is metal. Yellowstone doesn’t serve trigger warnings.

If you have ever visited the Grand Prismatic Spring, then you have had a sense of being in one of the most unreal-looking places on this planet. And it’s also 160 degrees of don’t even think about it, which is what makes what happened last week so tragic and, in a messed-up way, kinda metal.

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Somehow, a bull bison fell into the spring. Not near it. In it. Tourists reportedly screamed as the big guy slipped and went plummeting into the scalding waters, Cowboy State Daily reported. By the time the rangers had come to the scene, it was all over. He was dead by then and later had to be removed by the Yellowstone hazmat team. Not exactly the circle of life you find on a postcard.

But before anyone jumps down the animal’s throat, let’s be clear on the real problem: people. Tourists, excuse me, "tourons," swarm these animals as if they are characters at Disneyland. Rangers theorize that this bison was possibly looking to get away from people when he took a fall. Imagine that. Your final moment on Earth was trying to escape a selfie stick.

Yellowstone has been issuing the warning for years: stay at least 25 yards from bison. That’s not a suggestion. These are not zoo animals, and they don’t give a hoot about your Instagram. If you’ve ever been near one, you know that they are 2,000 pounds of fur-covered prehistoric fury. They deserve space. They’ve earned it.

So yeah, it’s a terrible way to die. But it’s also a bracing reminder that nature does not play by our rules. And occasionally, you end up in the soup.

@doyouwannabeth TRIGGER WARNING: Bison death. A male bison fell into the Grand Prismatic Spring in Yellowstone on June 21, 2025 at 6:52 am and died. Minutes later his female companion looked for him, not having witnessed his death. So horrific. #yellowstone #bison #bisondeath #yellowstonenationalpark #grandprismaticspring ♬ original sound - Beth