Park rangers in the United States have admitted they face a problem they haven’t encountered before and one that’s baffling them – bear ‘selfies’. Park rangers in California's Lake Tahoe park say they’re becoming increasingly concerned about the large number of people getting too close to bears in the park to get a picture with the animals. It comes just a few months after New York’s Big Cat Selfie problem got so bad they had to kill off the entire standing-around-big-cats scene with new laws.

The New York problem was linked to a growing number of people – men, mainly – getting selfies alongside big cats for their social media or Tinder profile pictures. A report in the Wall Street Journal estimated that One in 10 Tinder profiles had a tiger in it. One in 10. In California it appears a similar motivation is leading park rangers to take the ultimate in stating-the-obvious and tell people, officially, that taking selfies with bears is a bad idea – in fact it’s really propping things up at the low end of the good idea spectrum.

Officials at the U.S. Forest Service in charge of the Taylor Creek Visitor Centre in South Lake Tahoe are taking the step following a number of people putting themselves in danger to get the picture.

"We've had mobs of people that are actually rushing toward the bears trying to get a 'selfie' photo," Lisa Herron, spokesperson for the Lake Tahoe Basin Management Unit, told the Reno-Gazette Journal.

In fact the problem has become so bad that officials are considering closing down the bear sighting area if that is necessary to keep people safe.

"It is very possible, yes," Herron said. "It is presenting a safety issue. We are afraid someone is going to get attacked."

So far there are no reports of bears attacks at Lake Tahoe, although there is one report of a bear charging a group.