It’s amazing how a watch can be your worst enemy. Keeping a schedule or chasing fading light can be stressful, but also a significant hazard. Rushing around at dusk in national parks & forests invariably means you’re bound to see or worse yet run into wildlife. While I’m as guilty as the next person to be more rushed than I’d prefer when driving through national parks and forests, I have been fortunate that I’ve never run into wildlife. During dusk hours I am especially careful after a couple close calls several years ago and make every effort possible to drive under the speedlimit. Unfortunately most people fail to switch gears from their daily rush to a more leisurely pace while visiting parks and forests.
If you ever travel to Yosemite National Park they now place warning signs reading “Speeding Kills Bears” where bears have been hit by cars in the recent past. It’s a really sad trend that several bears every year are hit by speeding cars. You can see the statistics of bears hit in Yosemite National Park alone here and if you’re interested in learning more about how the “Speeding Kills Bears” sign came to be check out Jeffery Trusts’s blog post Speeding Kills Bears.
Speeding Kills Bears Sign, Yosemite National Park
I had a close encounter with an elk around 4:00 AM last fall driving on the bridge over the lake heading into Estes Park last fall. Had I been speeding it would have been bad for both of us.
Great Shot, congratulations!
You know what is sad…is that the gift store makes souvenirs’ of these signs for people to buy….I just find it kind of distasteful that something that is made to bring awareness to an issue is also being used as a way to generate money by the groups that run the concessions….