The summer crowds at Yellowstone National Park were confronted with the heartbreaking sight of a bison stumbling and then falling into the 160-degree Grand Prismatic Spring, one of the park’s main attractions.
After jumping and thrashing around for a moment trying to free himself, the bull bison lay down in the water and died. The incident occurred on Saturday, June 1.
“It was like seeing the circle of life unfold in the most raw way possible,” a visitor named Katie Hirtzel told Outside. “It was unexpected, haunting, and powerful to witness.”
Hirtzel was completing a daylong hike in Yellowstone with her husband and 13-year-old son when they descended a hillside and walked toward the Grand Prismatic Spring. Just before they reached the hot pool, they saw the footprints of bears and bison in the mud near it.
“We started talking about how amazing it is that these animals know how to navigate this crazy landscape,” she said.
As they came closer to the pool, they saw a large mass of hair protruding from the water. Hirtzel originally thought it was a dead bear, but as she got closer, she could see the horns and hoofs of a bison.
Hirtzel said she arrived shortly after the animal had died. She and her family snapped photos of the scene.
“It wasn’t gross or yucky,” she said. “There was mist in the air. It was an eerie sight.”
Hirtzel posted her images to a Facebook group called Yellowstone Through the Lens. Another visitor, Louise Howard, posted photos of the bison’s last fateful moments.
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“It took a few steps into a shallow area to the right of the pool, turned around, and stepped out very quickly,” Howard wrote on Facebook. “It stood for a moment, then turned back towards the spring and stepped into a deeper section, then couldn’t get out despite trying its best.”
When photos and videos of the incident were posted to Facebook, Internet denizens took a range of stances. Some commenters suggested that posting the footage was disrespectful to the animal. Others were more positive. “I bet that was sad to watch,” wrote one. “But I appreciate your pictures. It’s nature, and even though I’m a huge animal lover, I like to see the good and the bad.”
It’s unclear exactly why the bison stepped into Grand Prismatic, which is the largest hot spring in the United States and the third-largest in the world.
Observers noted online that it first stepped, briefly, into a shallower area of the pool, and then stepped out again.
While incidents like this are rare, they aren’t exactly anomalies. “There are occasional reports from observers of wildlife dying in hot springs,” Mike Poland, the Yellowstone Volcano Observatory’s scientist-in-charge, told The Sacramento Bee. Poland added that although there is no clear record of how many incidents occur per year, “It’s not at all unprecedented.”
The hot springs and geysers at Yellowstone don’t just present a hazard for wildlife, but for humans, too. In fact, the park’s hot springs kill more people than bears, and even bison. And that’s saying something, since bison goring has become a semi-annual occurrence.
Hundreds of people have been injured in Yellowstone hot springs over the years, and nearly two dozen have been killed. In 2024 an SUV filled with tourists accidentally drove into one—everyone was OK.
However one finds oneself in a hot spring, it’s a dicey situation. The water in most of these springs is scalding hot. It can run anywhere from 100 degrees Fahrenheit at the edges and surface, to nearly 200 degrees deeper down. Once you’ve fallen into one, of course, it might be too late.
Hirtzel said she and her family returned to the Grand Prismatic Pool the day after seeing the dead bison, and the carcass was still in the water. She said that the ordeal sparked a conversation with her son about the life cycle within the park.
“We talked about how nature isn’t always pretty, but that’s the process,” she said. “He wasn’t scared. He was like ‘wow, I got to see something really rare.'”
