I hope the photographer is happy now.
** Vince M. Camiolo says he is “saddened by the fate of the elk,” and said he was told the decision to euthanize the elk was “based on a pattern of aggressive behavior that began priot to the incident” documented on the video.**
The deer at Yosemite are like that too ...used to their *hand-outs*.
I don’t necessarily blame the photographer for this. AFAIK, he wasn’t feeding the elk and he didn’t approach the elk, the elk came up to him while he was sitting on the ground on the side of the road taking pictures.
According to the article and from others I read, the elk in the video had been doing this to other people and prior to this video, “the difficult decision to put the elk to death was made after efforts to keep it away from people failed. She said visitors have been feeding some of the elks, causing the wild animals to lose their fear of humans.”
I do however question why he didn’t get up and make a loud noise and wave his arms in the air or why his friend didn’t blow the vehicle horn and drive up closer so his friend could get in and scare the animal away earlier. Perhaps he thought that doing so would make the elk really angry? That by being passive, that the elk would lose interest and leave on his own?
The elk could have easily gored him or slashed him with his hooves but didn’t, he seemed to be “playing” or perhaps was hoping for a food handout at least for a while, but when the elk started getting more aggressive, they were easily able to get it to back off, something IMO they should have done to begin with. But the photographer didn’t cause this behavior, the people who have been feeding the elk did. Feeding wild animals, especially up close and personal is never a good idea, for the people or for the animals.