YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK, WY – Bears, bison and other animals aren’t leaving Yellowstone National Park in large numbers, despite what you may have seen online.

Posts on social media began popping up in July suggesting that animals might be moving out of the park because they knew about some impending disaster of which humans were not aware, such as the eruption of the supposed “supervolcano” lurking under Yellowstone.

Michael Poland, scientist-in-charge of Yellowstone Volcano Observatory at the U.S. Geological Survey, said there were undertones in the false claims from these videos that animals know more about nature than humans, but there isn’t evidence to support that. He also noted the videos showed animals that were filmed elsewhere or at different times of year, such as a video of mountain lions migrating south.

“It was claimed to be in July and there was snow all over the place, and that’s not how Yellowstone looks in July,” he said. “So, I think if people look at these videos and don’t take them at face value and think a little bit about what they’re seeing, that might help to sort of deduce something that’s a joke from something that might be real.”

The claims on social media appear to have come from a satirical account, although others believed animals really were leaving the park in droves. Poland wrote an article for the Yellowstone Caldera Chronicles to dispel these rumors. The chronicles consist of weekly columns written by scientists and collaborators at the Yellowstone Volcano Observatory.

Poland said internet hoaxes like this one happen from time to time and are usually pretty harmless. However, the rumors did have an impact on the staff at Yellowstone National Park.

“It hit the national park kind of hard in that they got all kinds of inquiries,” he continued. “So, they spent a bunch of their time trying to respond to those inquiries rather than doing other things that might be more constructive.”

While fears have persisted that the caldera under Yellowstone will erupt, Poland says that isn’t likely.

“Reality is that the Yellowstone magma body is mostly solid,” he stressed. “We’re just not worried about a volcanic eruption there. On human timescales, the bigger hazards are a strong tectonic earthquake – something like the magnitude 7.3 that happened in 1959 – a steam explosion, like the one that happened just last year.”