A little over a week back a tourist left the boardwalk near a geyser at Yellowstone National Park. This led to the tragedy of the man falling into a boiling hot spring, costing him his life.
At Yellowstone, it’s illegal to walk around off of the boardwalks for two reasons- to protect the park land and the visitors.
Just around a week after the tragic event described above took place, another tourist wandered off of one of the parks boardwalks and now he’s going to pay for it.
The Huffington Post says that “Yellowstone National Park officials are done with warnings“.
A Chinese tourist walked off of the boardwalk and collected water from a thermal spring failing to follow park rules. The tourist “was also seen breaking through the surrounding travertine crust, which is fragile limestone deposited by the springs“.
The park has fined the man $1,000 plus he’ll also need to go to court and pay a $30 processing fee.
When interviewed, the man said that he didn’t read safety info given to him at the park entrance and also confessed to taking the water.
Maybe fining tourists for breaking the rules will prevent things like this from happening in the future. It might save visitors some money or even more importantly, their life.
Find out more from the Huffington Post here.
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Jay- Some good points here for sure…
I’m not sure $1,000 fine is large enough. I hope this was actually an “arrest and release” ticket and not just a simply a fine. People need to learn to respect our last remaining places of natural beauty. They are already threatened by defunding, etc. Should the guy really have needed a pamphlet to tell him not to break through the travertine crust? At least with an arrest and release ticket, maybe he won’t be able to get a visa back into the country again and won’t have anymore ‘i didn’t read the rules’ incidents from him.