There is no evidence of a mass exodus of animals fleeing Yellowstone, a spokeswoman for the US national park in Wyoming told AFP, refuting widespread social media claims. Images being presented online as a bad omen foreshadowing a volcanic eruption are unrelated and in some cases fabricated — and experts say such warnings have no basis in fact.
“So what’s going on in Yellowstone Park ? Have you all seen these vids ? Bisons, bears, elks and mountain lions are leaving Yellowstone,” says a July 17 post on X.
The post shares four different clips of animals on the move.
The clips originated with TikTok content creator and self-proclaimed “animal expert,” Scott Whitehead. He posted them in July alongside claims that “hundreds” of mountain lions were migrating to Utah from Yellowstone, that “all of the grizzly bears started leaving” and that a “mass exodus” of bison was underway.
A screenshot of an X post taken July 25, 2025
Other posts shared in multiple languages joined the speculation, suggesting the animals in the clips could sense forthcoming dangerous seismic activity in the area.
A similar claim also spread on Facebook, with a chain-text post claiming: “Bears Form Unprecedented Blockade at Yellowstone Entrance — Scientists Fear They Know Something We Don’t.”
But wildlife are not leaving Yellowstone in large numbers, park spokeswoman Linda Veress told AFP.
“This rumor is false, and we believe the videos that are circulating on social media are satirical in nature and use AI-generated footage,” she said in a July 24 email.
“There is no scientific evidence that wildlife can sense impending earthquakes and volcanic eruptions.”
The United States Geological Survey (USGS), which monitors seismic activity at Yellowstone, also debunked the claims.
“The myth that animals are leaving Yellowstone is nothing new,” the scientific agency wrote July 28 on its website (archived here). “This rumor comes up every year or two, and sometimes, as in 2025, it grows to ridiculous proportions.”
AI and old images
Some clips cited as evidence of a “mass exodus” from Yellowstone are fabricated, AFP found.
A reverse image search revealed that the image of the bears lying across the road was first posted February 28 by a page that regularly shares content that appears to be generated by artificial intelligence. The image and others on the page feature drawing-like properties, blurry details and inconsistent proportions.
Other videos are old or do not correspond to Yellowstone.
Wildlife photographer Fernando Agustin shot the original clip of mountain lions on a snowy road and posted it to Instagram in May (archived here).
According to the caption, it was taken in Torres del Paine, Chile, during the country’s winter (archived here).
Veress added that Yellowstone’s mountain lion population is estimated to be between 29 and 45 — not “hundreds.”
Yellowstone is an open-animal reserve, meaning herds of bison and elk frequently move from one area to another in search of food, and encounters with visitors are frequent (archived here).
But the video of the bison has been circulating since at least 2017, another reverse image search revealed.
MLADEN ANTONOVAFP
MLADEN ANTONOV / AFP
The elk video, meanwhile, does not show Yellowstone.
It was published in a December 2024 post reporting a herd crossing a road in Colorado’s Estes National Park. Road signs and other details from the footage confirm the location (archived here).
Seismic theory
The most recent volcanic activity in the area happened approximately 77,000 years ago and formed from the Pitchstone Plateau, located in southwestern Yellowstone (archived here).
Scientists from the Yellowstone Volcano Observatory continuously monitor the volcano for sudden or strong earthquake activity, ground shifts and volcanic gasses that would indicate increasing activity.
As of July 1, 2025, the activity was reported as “green” or “normal.”
In June, the observatory registered 60 earthquakes with activity remaining “at background levels” (archived here).
A screenshot of current seismic conditions at Yellowstone taken on the USGS website July 25, 2025
Veress said there is no evidence or sign of an impending eruption.
“Another caldera-forming eruption is theoretically possible, but it is very unlikely in the next thousand or even 10,000 years. Scientists have found no indication of an imminent smaller eruption of lava in more than 30 years of monitoring.”
Jamie Farrell, research associate professor at the University of Utah’s department of geology and geophysics, concurred (archived here).
“There is nothing out of the ordinary for the number of events that we are recording in the Yellowstone region, both in terms of the number of earthquakes and where they are occurring,” he told AFP in a July 18 email.
Animal sensitivity to natural disasters
While humans usually do not notice small seismic movements, it is accurate to say other animals with more keen senses can.
However, the USGS notes (archived here): “As for sensing an impending earthquake days or weeks before it occurs, that’s a different story.”
Myths about a correlation between lost-pet reports and earthquakes in California’s San Francisco Bay area were previously debunked by researchers at California Geology (archived here)
The Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior also wrote in 2020 that “before the behavior of animals can be used to predict earthquakes, researchers need to observe a larger number of animals over longer periods of time in different earthquake zones around the world” (archived here).
AFP has previously debunked other myths about seismic activity and animals.