Getting a closer look at a family of bears at Yellowstone National Park led to criminal charges against an Illinois woman.
The Carol Stream woman is charged in U.S. District Court in Yellowstone Park with feeding, touching, teasing, frightening, or intentionally disturbing wildlife, among others, according to the Billings Gazette.
Yellowstone National Park shared a photo in search of the then-unidentified woman on Facebook on May 25. Park officials explained that she “approached a female grizzly bear and her two cubs at the north end of the Roaring Mountain parking lot. The female grizzly charged the woman who turned and walked away from the bears.” It happened in the Roaring Mountain area of the park on May 10 around 4:45 p.m., according to Yellowstone National Park.
Visitors are required to stay at least 300 feet away from bears and wolves, but witnesses said the woman did not move away from the bears — as other visitors did — when they approached her. The adult female bear was about 15 feet from her, the Billings Gazette notes from court records.
Eventually, someone managed to lead investigators to the suspect after seeing a widely-circulated video on social media tagging her name.
That’s when investigators got a warrant to search her social media posts, the Associated Press reports.
The woman is slated to appear in court on August 26.