Pierce Brosnan accused of trespassing in Yellowstone National Park

US National Park Service rangers have charged former James Bond actor Pierce Brosnan with trespassing in Yellowstone National Park.

Mr Brosnan, 70, was charged with going off trail near the Mammoth Hot Springs and has been ordered to appear in court in Wyoming on 23 January.

The hot springs are part of the park's thermal features that include geysers, steam vents and scalding mud pools.

More than 20 people have been killed after falling into the park's springs.

The Irish actor, who played James Bond from 1995 to 2002, had entered an off-limits area near the Mammoth Terraces on 1 November, according to charging documents obtained by BBC News.

He allegedly left the boardwalk to enter the ecologically sensitive ground.

Mr Brosnan has not commented on the charges.

Leaving the trail can be very dangerous, as the ground is brittle and can easily give way to the boiling hot acid pools beneath, according to the park's website.

In August, a Michigan man sustained thermal burns after leaving the official trail in Yellowstone, the world's oldest national park.

In 2021, a 20-year-old woman suffered severe burns after trying to rescue her dog from a Yellowstone hot spring.

In 2016, a 23-year-old man died in the Lower Geyser Basin after leaving the boardwalk trail with his sister.

Authorities later determined it was too unsafe to recover his body, which had dissolved almost entirely by the following day.

Mr Brosnan - who also starred in the volcano blockbuster Dante's Peak, Mama Mia, Mrs Doubtfire and The Thomas Crown Affair - had been in the area to film Unholy Trinity.

The Western, which also stars Samuel L Jackson, was being filmed after a deal was struck with Sag-Aftra to avoid strike rules.