Officials at a state park in South Dakota are warning visitors after a bison attacked a woman this week while trying to take a photo of a mother bison and her calf.
The incident in Custer State Park on Wednesday was videotaped, with footage showing a group of motorcyclists stopping in the road as a herd of bison passed by, a local NBC branch reported.
The woman was sitting to take a picture when another bison approached her, hooked his horns into her jeans and ran her into the air. The woman was then thrown out of her pants and landed on the ground before observers ran to help her.
The woman is a 54-year-old from Iowa and has been flown to a hospital. Their condition is unknown.
Custer State Park officials on Friday issued a statement saying the incident serves as a warning to park visitors not to get too close to wildlife.
“This was certainly a sad event. We can not predict the visitors enough to respect the space of these animals and all the animals they encounter in the park,” the statement said.
The park visitor who filmed the bison attack, Jo Reed, posted several videos of the scene on Facebook and encouraged viewers to share to make others aware of the potential dangers of encountering bison in the wild.
The incident involving the bison follows two others reported earlier this year in Yellowstone National Park.
In June, a 72-year-old woman from California was gore when she tried to photograph a bison, NBC reported.
Another woman was killed by a bison in May, just two days after the national park reopened following COVID-19 pandemic restrictions.
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