Are animals leaving Yellowstone National Park in ‘mass exodus’? NPS weighs in
.jpeg "Videos allegedly showing wildlife migrating out of Yellowstone National Park in a “mass exodus” started spreading across social media in early July.")
After videos suggesting wildlife is fleeing Yellowstone National Park in a “mass exodus” went viral on social media, the National Park Service is setting the record straight.
The satirical videos started spreading in early July after a social media influencer and self-proclaimed “animal expert” and “everything expert” known as Scott Whitehead shared them to his accounts. The videos show mountain lions, grizzly bears and bison migrating out of the park in droves.
Whitehead jokingly claims hundreds of the animals are “heading south to Salt Lake City, Utah” and that the migrations are “baffling the scienlific experts.”
In another video showing dozens of what Whitehead calls “grizzle bears” walking along roads, the internet troll claims park experts believe bison will be the next to migrate and that they’ve hired a “Dr. Rimi Dimi” to crack the case.
Some commented suggesting the animals “sense something,” such as activity from a supervolcano underneath the park — or the “last days of the Earth” as Whitehead suggests in some of the videos.
Several people also commented on the satirical nature of the videos.
“Best trolling I’ve seen in a while,” someone commented under one of the videos.
“It’s actually concerning to me how many people think this guy is being serious,” another person said in the comments.
The National Park Service shared photos of bison in the park in a July 23 post on Instagram.
“Is there a mass exodus of animals going on in Yellowstone?” the agency said in the post. “You may have seen videos or ‘herd’ online that the bison population in Yellowstone was leaving. That is false.”
While bison certainly do live and travel in herds and “migrate between different areas of Yellowstone throughout the year, they have not been exiting the park on any wild weekend getaways or relocating for work,” the park service said.
And those migrations have been happening less this year, the agency said.
“With minimal bison-human interactions this year … frequent flier miles earned by bison meet and greets have been limited leading to more staycations,” officials said, adding that they hope the less frequent bison-human conflicts are the result of visitors “respecting wildlife” because of the park service’s “ongoing ‘don’t pet that because it will hurt you’ campaign.”
“In conclusion, as Abraham Lincoln once said, ‘don’t believe everything you see on tiktok,” the agency said. “Something like that.”
This story was originally published July 24, 2025 at 12:37 PM with the headline "Are animals leaving Yellowstone National Park in ‘mass exodus’? NPS weighs in."
