Tourists, eh? What are they like? There’s clearly something about going on holiday that turns off the part of the brain that deals with common sense. Mix that with a devil may care ‘we’re on holiday, let’s do it’ attitude and a wild animal or two, and you’ve got a potent recipe for disaster, says Dixe Wills.
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Sadly, it’s not always the tourists themselves that pays for their recklessness, stupidity or need to impress the folks back home. So, if you’re thinking of going on holiday to see some wildlife, here are 10 cautionary tales of what not to do.
10 unbelievably idiotic acts wildlife tourists actually did
1 Picking up a baby wombat
Arguably the most notorious ‘idiot tourist’ incident of recent times occurred in Australia earlier this year. American influencer Sam Jones posted a film of herself on instagram grabbing and picking up a baby (or joey) hairy-nosed wombat by the side of a road.
The 34-second clip shows the self-styled ‘wildlife biologist and environmental scientist’ carrying the animal towards a car, hotly pursued by its mother. The joey, clearly in distress, wriggles in an attempt to get free and can be heard squealing and hissing. Jones declares, ‘I caught a baby wombat,’ before eventually putting the creature down.
The video – which went viral before being taken down – caused a storm of protest around the world. The American’s actions were strongly criticised by Australian wildlife charities, who cited the distress caused to both mother and baby and the possibility of permanent damage having been done by the manhandling it received. Jones left the country soon afterwards after the Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke had announced that a review was being undertaken into whether her actions were illegal.
2 Wandering up to a family of bears
Yellowstone National Park seems to bring the worst out of tourists – stories of their foolhardy actions there are legion. The park, which lies mostly in Wyoming, is home to a number of potentially dangerous animals including wolves, coyotes, lynx, cougars, bison… and grizzly bears.
Tourist Samantha Dehring walked right up to a mother and cubs with the idea of taking a photograph close up. Unsurprisingly, the mother grizzly in question was unhappy about this and ran at the would be paparazza, stopping just a few metres short of her – a so called ‘bluff charge’. Dehring duly left the scene.
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However, the story didn’t end there. The miscreant was charged with wilfully remaining, approaching and photographing wildlife within 100 yards. She pleaded guilty and was sentenced to four days in prison. She was also fined, put on probation and banned from Yellowstone for a year.
3 Putting a bison in the boot
Another incident in Yellowstone illustrates how, in too many interactions between tourists and wildlife, it is the animals that come off worse. This was certainly the case for a bison calf back in 2016.
A pair of well meaning but hopelessly misguided visitors came across the calf which they described as ‘cold and alone’. Ignoring Yellowstone rules, they picked it up, put it in the back of their SUV and delivered it to the park authorities.
Aghast, the rangers quickly drove the calf back and attempted several times to reintroduce it to its herd. Sadly, the other bison rejected it. The calf, which was now indeed alone, took to approaching visitors to the park. As a result, the rangers took the decision to put the animal down. The two tourists were handed a small fine.
4 Messing with Komodo Dragons
Komodo dragons are the world’s largest lizard – and its deadliest. The dinosaur-like creatures can grow up to 3m long and look a fearsome sight at the best of times. They are reputed to be able to snap an adult’s leg in two with a single bite and their saliva is venomous. In 2007, an eight-year-old boy who lived on Komodo Island was attacked and killed by one. Given this plethora of warning signs, one would have thought that any sane human being would give the animals a wide berth.
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Not so one Lon Lee Alle, a 50-year-old tourist from Singapore. In 2017, while visiting the Komodo National Park in Indonesia, he decided he didn’t want to pay for a guide and went off by himself to watch some komodo dragons feasting on pigs and goats.
Approaching one individual for that extra special photo, he was attacked. He was fortunate enough to be rescued by other visitors but his left leg was extremely badly mauled and required extensive surgery.
5 Monkey selfie
A thankfully less painful outcome awaited holidaymaker Connor Sargent. While inside the Uluwato Temple on the island of Bali, he decided to take a selfie with a monkey. He turned his back on the primate, who was sitting on a low roof behind him.
The monkey, no doubt offended, reached forward and stole his sunglasses. It then loped swiftly off up the roof, where it had a good chew of its booty. It was left to temple staff to retrieve the shades and return them to their owner who, to his credit, admitted his folly.
‘The monkey nicked my glasses,’ he declared afterwards, ‘whilst I was stupidly trying to take a selfie with it.’
6 Sleeeping with crocodiles
Australia famously is a land teeming with wildlife that will kill humans if given half the chance, from spiders and snakes to sharks and jellyfish. So curling up under a sleeping bag for a night on a beach is probably not a good idea, especially in an area known as ‘croc country’. Yet that is what 65-year-old tourist Manfred Van Eckeren chose to do. His kip on Newell Beach near Port Douglas in Queensland ended rather suddenly.
‘I felt the crocodile basically came down on my foot with pretty much the force of a sledgehammer,’ he told a reporter on Australia’s 7NEWS channel after the event.
The holidaymaker’s life was saved when the saltwater crocodile began to attack his sleeping bag, giving him a chance to slip away. He managed to get himself to a hospital where his foot was treated for puncture wounds. Lesson learnt, he declared that he wouldn’t be sleeping on any beaches in the future.
7 Taunting a moose
While crocodiles are very obviously dangerous to humans, there are many other wild animals whose good nature is best not tested. Being hit by a charging moose, for example, is likely to be an experience that will stay with you for some time given that they have a top speed of around 25 mph and can weigh up to 700kg.
Two male tourists visiting the resort of Big Sky, Montana had a very lucky escape when they decided to provoke a moose standing by itself in the snow. Despite being told to leave it alone by a local named Jason Holfensperger, who filmed their actions, the pair got closer and closer, pretending to play a game. Holfensperger called across to them ‘You guys must be the dumbest people I've ever met in my life.’
One of them proceeded to prove him right by touching the moose. This was the final straw for the giant deer who immediately spun around and charged them. One of the men slipped on the snow in front of moose. Despite Holfensperger’s delighted cries to the moose of ‘Yeah, get him!’ the creature did not follow through with its attack and the men escaped injury.
Passing around a dolphin
In 2016, video and photographs emerged of an appalling incident on a beach at the Santa Teresita resort in Buenos Aires, Argentina. The clip shows a small La Plata (also known as Franciscan) dolphin being pulled from the shallows. Its tail wags weakly in protest. It is then passed from hand to hand around a crowd of excited holidaymakers who all want to be photographed holding it.
Images posted on the internet show that dolphin and another one being held aloft by various members of the crowd. At least one and possibly both of the dolphins died while being passed around or after being abandoned on the beach.
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The Argentine Wildlife Foundation was forced to issue a warning to stop treating dolphins this way and to return to the sea any found washed up on the shore. Classed as ‘Vulnerable’ on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, there are estimated to be as few as 30,000 La Plata dolphins remaining on the planet.
Cosying up to a camel
Last year, a tourist in Kuwait decided it was fine to invade a female camel’s personal space in order to engage her in conversation. The camel was unimpressed and promptly spat in her face. The woman twirled quickly away in revulsion but soon began laughing about the incident. In reply to a query as to how she was, she replied, ‘I got some camel spit right in my eye ball, so.…’
The video capturing this event received almost universal condemnation from those who viewed it. Camels react to stress or to feeling threatened by bringing up bile from the stomach and spitting at the perceived aggressor, which was clearly what had occurred in this case. Luckily for the tourist concerned, the camel decided enough was enough and walked away.
10 Elephant close-ups
There are so many incidents of things going wrong when tourists have tried to get up close to take photos of the planet’s largest land mammal that you’d have thought the message would have permeated by now. Some of those encounters have even proved fatal, with the photographer crushed or gored by an irate elephant.
Even when the episodes have not ended in death or major injury the footage of them can be shocking to watch. Such is the case of three tourists in 2020 who attempted to get that perfect wildlife shot near a forest at Hosur in Tamil Badu, India.
The elephant charged them, causing them to turn and flee for their lives. However, one of the group fell over and came very close to being trampled. He got off lightly, merely being thumped by the elephant’s trunk. The animal returned to the forest, doubtless with its opinion of humans driven still lower.