He was not a wolf in human clothing.
A man daring death by approaching a pack of wolves in the middle of Yellowstone National Park was captured in wild video by horrified bystanders.
The clip showed a man in a white scarf striding across an open field toward a group of five black wolves while a crowd of parkgoers watched in alarm on Oct. 6.
“This could end very badly for that guy,” somebody was heard saying in the video, which was first posted to the aptly named Facebook group “Yellowstone National Park: Invasion of the Idiots.”
The man in the scarf was initially backing away from the animals, but as they bounded toward him and appeared to begin surrounding him, he started advancing — and came within feet of several of them while waving something in his hand.
“Hey! Hey! Get the hell away from them! Back up!” people began shouting from a ridgeline as the man kept goading the animals, before he raised his hand and fired off what appeared to be a shot of bear spray.
The wolves seemed undeterred, however, and kept advancing as the man in the scarf kept retreating — until the entire group disappeared from view into a ravine.
Only the dangerous animals’ black tails and ruffs could be seen over the crest of the hill as the watchers wondered if the worst was occurring just out of view.
“Hopefully, they didn’t get him. Well, should I say that out loud? That I wouldn’t really care if they did?” one person said.
“He’s in mortal danger,” another said.
The wild incident went down at Yellowstone National Park on Oct. 6 as people looked on in horror. AP
The wolves eventually backed off and went on their way, while the man in the scarf was later seen returning from the field and acting erratically as he went — prompting people to speculate that he was high on some kind of drug.
And while he survived his encounter with the animals, people watching joked that he was going to get bitten worse once the park’s wildlife lovers got hold of him.
“He’s gonna get his ass chewed,” one said. “Oh yeah.”
National parks prohibit visitors from coming within 100 yards of wildlife — especially dangerous predators like wolves, bears and mountain lions that roam freely in parks like Yellowstone.
Nevertheless, boneheaded visitors sometimes ignore the rules, and several headlines about people being gored by the likes of bison typically come out of the parks each year.
Wolf attacks are extremely rare, however, even in the wild — the last recorded fatality confirmed in the US happened in Alaska in 2010.
And as foolish as the man in the Oct. 6 incident was, Yellowstone wildlife guide Evan Stout told SFGATE that he was — unbeknownst to him — actually unlikely to have been in any serious danger because the wolves appeared to be a group of pups that were born this year.
“They were curious,” Stout explained. “It was probably their first-ever interaction with a human.”