Ever feel the urge to get close to a bear so you can snap a quick photo when you're in a national park or forest? It could be the last thing you ever do, federal officials are warning visitors in one California forest area.

Noting a recent (and growing) trend on social media called #BearSelfies, officials at the U.S. Forest Service's Lake Tahoe Basin Management Unit posted a warning on their website last week that visitors there were behaving in unsafe ways around bears.

"Bears are unpredictable, wild animals and may attack if threatened," Forest Supervisor Nancy Gibson said in a news release . "We can’t have visitors creating dangerous situations for themselves and others. People are risking serious injury or death if they get too close to a bear."

What she is describing is situations like the photos below, posted to Instagram and other social media sites after photographers got far too close to bears than they ever should have.

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

It's gotten so bad that forest service officials are considering closing down the area, if that's what it takes to stop people from taking these photos. "It is presenting a safety issue," she added. "We are afraid someone is going to get attacked ."

This kind of visitor behavior puts more than simply people at risk, officials say. "Approaching bears too closely is also putting bears at risk, since bears may be captured and killed if they attack," the Lake Tahoe Basin Unit news release warns.

See the full news release at the U.S. Forest Service , or read more at CBS San Francisco .