Family’s 1950’s Yellowstone Video Shows Hand-Feeding of Bears
It's true that some things never seem to change at Yellowstone National Park, but a new family retro video shows that other things have. It dates back to the 1950's and shows how many tourists used to hand-feed bears.
I want to be crystal clear that I am not trying to shame this family. They weren't doing anything that thousands of other families used to do in Yellowstone back in the day. Andrea Lawrence mentioned on YouTube that she edited some of her family's old vacation videos from 8mm and decided to share them publicly.
It's a wild throwback to classic (although they were new then) 1950's era cars and bear feeding. It really happened. A lot. I've mentioned it previously, but the park kinda encouraged it. Anecdotal stories have been passed down by generations who had park rangers in that time period quietly supporting the practice.
There is so much more to Andrea's video than just bear feeding. I will add that the bears look so innocent as they go from car to car begging. It's almost like they're not capable of tearing your arm off. Almost.
You might have noticed what looked like thousands surrounding Old Faithful. One interesting fact from the National Park Service is back in the 1950's, the geyser would erupt much more regularly and frequently. Back then, they say it would erupt every 50 to 60 minutes. Now, it's more like every 94 minutes or so.
If you think this family's video of feeding bears by hand is unusual, check out this Smithsonian video that shows how common it really used to be.