A Swiss tourist’s attempt to avoid running over a spider led to an accident at California’s Death Valley National Park.
Most would assume that a person might freak out over a bear or bison encounter, but in this case, it was a tarantula that caused quite the commotion.
According to a press release from Death Valley National Park in California, on October 28, two Swiss tourists were cruising in a campervan when the driver spotted the spider and hit the brakes abruptly. This sudden stop resulted in a motorcycle rider, who had been riding behind the van, crashing into the back of their vehicle.
The motorcyclist was promptly taken to a nearby hospital, while the spider, as per the park’s statement, “walked away unscathed.”
Tarantulas are just one of the many types of wildlife inhabiting Death Valley, the United States’ hottest and driest national park. However, they are not the creatures most commonly encountered by visitors.
As explained in the park’s press release, tarantulas typically spend most of their lives underground, only emerging to seek mates. The fall season is when they are most likely to surface.
The park authorities emphasize that there is no need for visitors to panic upon spotting these eight-legged creatures. Tarantulas are slow-moving and generally nonaggressive. Their bite is said to be comparable to a bee sting and poses no lethal threat to humans.
In recent years, several human-animal encounters have occurred in America’s national parks, but most of them resulted from people attempting to approach animals rather than avoiding them. For instance, earlier this year, at Yellowstone National Park, a bison calf had to be euthanized after a visitor attempted to pick it up.
The person pleaded guilty to “feeding, touching, teasing, frightening, or intentionally disturbing wildlife” and was fined $500.
This week, a segment of North Carolina’s Blue Ridge Parkway National Park had to be closed due to multiple incidents of visitors feeding and attempting to interact with a young bear.
Source iHarare
