Jodi Peterson

Associate Editor

It happens every summer in our national parks: someone tries to get a close-up of a bull bison, or hand-feed marshmallows to bears, or pose the kids next to a rutting moose, and ends up injured or dead. You’d think that after surviving such an encounter, you’d quit trying to get up close and personal with wildlife.

Not so for a Montana man, reports the Billings Gazette. 57-year-old photographer Jim Cole, a strong advocate for grizzlies and their habitat, was severely mauled by a Yellowstone bruin while trying to take pictures — and it wasn’t the first time:

Cole was injured in a bear attack once before, the Park Service said. In September 1993, he walked out of the backcountry in Glacier National Park after being hurt by a grizzly there.

In 2005, he was charged and later acquitted on a misdemeanor charge in Yellowstone for approaching within 100 yards of three bears, according to court records.

Let’s hope Cole recovers fully. And please, folks, give the charismatic megafauna a respectful distance.