As the annual elk rut gets underway in Estes Park and Rocky Mountain National Park, experts are urging tourists to use caution and give the animals distance after several videos from the popular sightseeing area have garnered attention in recent years for bad behavior and getting too close to the animals.

Several of the videos in question have gained notoriety after appearing on the Tourons of Yellowstone Instagram page; a channel dedicated to documenting, “what not to do,” around wildlife according to its bio.

“Right now, I’m seeing plenty of videos from Yellowstone, Rocky Mountain National Park, Estes Park, basically showing the elk rut and a lot of times, the images usually involve your typical idiot tourist getting too close to an elk and the videographer trying to capture something terrible happening,” Katie Abrams, an associate professor at Colorado State University in the in the Journalism and Media Communication Department, said in a press release.

For some, the spectacle of dozens of elks gathering and bugling in front of mountain scenery is too hard to resist, getting much closer than the recommended 25 yards, Abrams said.

Colorado’s lack of the species’ natural predators, brown bears and wolves, found in other Western states, allow elk to congregate in larger numbers in the month-long rut, typically lasting from mid-September through mid-October. Researchers in recent years have determined the iconic bugle of a bull elk actually can convey a variety of complex information, including warnings or challenges to other males, directions to cows in a harem and more.