After the recent Yellowstone earthquake, many hoax videos have been put up online suggesting that the wild animals inhabiting the lands were fleeing from the location of the earthquake because of a possible volcano eruption.
But according to Yellowstone National Park, which sits on the largest super volcano on the continent, they’re all false.
The Yellowstone National Park twitter page is still referring people to their response to all the hoax videos. The park published a Youtube video named “Minute Out In It: Rumor Control” which had just under 400,000 views on April 9, 2014.
@ChristeneAB Animals are migrating in search of food as they do every winter/spring. For more, check out http://t.co/RuioTi1EvV.
— YellowstoneNPS (@YellowstoneNPS) April 9, 2014
The official video response shows Public Affairs Chief Al Nash standing in the park, debunking the hoaxes. He says animals leave the park in the depth of winter to find food.
“We see no signs to suggest that the Yellowstone National Park is about to erupt,” Nash said.
The recent earthquake of 4.8 magnitude on the Richter Scale was the most intense in the past 30 years. Nash said the park typically experiences 1,000 to 3,000 unnoticeable earthquakes a year.
The hoax videos are an attempt at warning people of a possible wide-scale disaster.
One Youtube video labelled “ALERT! Yellowstone Buffalo Running for Their Lives!” which garnered over 2 million video by April 9, showed a herd of bison fleeing down a road away from the mountain ridge.
The video was posted on March 20, 10 days before a magnitude-4.8 earthquake hit, the park’s strongest quake in 30 years.
Although the YouTube video says the animals are leaving, park spokesman Dan Hottle told the Jackson Hole Daily that they are actually running toward the park’s interior and the volcano.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
