National parks hope visitors comply with virus measures

CHEYENNE, Wyo. (AP) — A man pets a wild bison on the head. Rescuers pull a treasure seeker from a snowy canyon. A woman taking photos stumbles into scalding water.

Visitors to Yellowstone National Park often leave common sense and situational awareness at home, as those examples in the past year show.

Now, as Yellowstone and other national parks end a two-month shutdown due to the coronavirus, park officials ask visitors to take simple precautions: wash hands, keep a safe distance apart, wear protective face coverings in public.

But it's unclear if tourists will comply or if popular parks known for drawing large crowds will become hot spots.

Memorial Day weekend typically signals the start of the summer tourist season in national parks, when crowds gather shoulder to shoulder at popular scenic spots such as Old Faithful to witness the wonder of a geyser erupting.

As with nature’s many other dangers, which in Yellowstone range from sunburn to charging grizzly bears, park officials plan to let the public mostly police itself against disease.

“We can’t keep the public away from bison and bears every year at full staffing levels. So the notion that we’re going to keep every human being 6 feet apart is ridiculous,” Yellowstone Superintendent Cam Sholly said.

Yellowstone, which partially reopened on Monday, has spent $135,000 in recent weeks on sanitizing equipment, finding personal protective gear, modifying boardwalks to spread out foot traffic near thermal features, and posting a “massive amount of signage” to promote hygiene and social distancing.

But Sholly said he has no intention of putting his employees at risk by breaking up every ill-advised crowd.

“It’s an easy choice, actually," he said. “That doesn’t mean we’re not managing it....