Experts are worried about the rising trend of wildlife selfies that can cause stress to some species and lead to dangerous situations.
Professor Philip Seddon - the director of Otago University's Wildlife Management Programme - is part of a group of experts who discussed the problem at the International Penguin Conference in Dunedin.'
Photo: supplied
He told Karyn Hay the discussions revolved around whether it’s a good thing for conservation, to engage people, or a bad thing that just stresses animals and leads to dangerous situations.
“I think what’s happening is we’re seeing a surge of imagery out on social media, people out with wild animals, and it creates this expectation that this is how we should be interacting with wildlife if you like.”
And social media influencers and celebrities that post such pictures aren’t helping either, he says.
“I think it’s this obsession with crafting our image to the world and if we have an amazing experience and there’s no-one else to see it, then did it really happened?”
The worst-case scenarios can be seen with institutions that encourage the practice, he says.
“Southeast Asia’s particularly bad for it, there’s actually a lot of operations there that hold animals, like tigers, in captivity and then haul them out so that tourists can line up and get a photo next to a drugged tiger that’s ordinarily kept in a cage, that’s kind of the bad end of the spectrum really.”
There are animals that don’t made the presence of humans around but then there’s those that are highly stressed by it. For example, the quokkas at Rottnest Island in Australia have been gaining attention from tourists for taking selfies with them.
While the quokkas are seemingly tolerant, it’s these acts that might set a precedence for more dangerous acts by selfie-takers, Seddon says.
“So they’re getting closer and closer to these animals and possibly this species might be reasonably tolerant of it but you can get an escalation, not only are they getting a selfie, next someone will be … deciding they can go and do this with a kangaroo or a koala or something else.”
There's been cases of risky incidents in Canada’s Banff National Park, where the elk is known to come into the town. But it’s not quite as friendly as it sounds, Seddon says.
“At times they’re rutting so they can be quite aggressive, but you get tourists going up there thinking that every bit if wildlife is Bambi and there are instances of people trying to perch their kids on the back of a rutting elk to try and get the ultimate photo.”
And animation movies may also be setting an image in our minds that these animals enjoy or don’t mind us getting in their space, Seddon says.
“But people don’t distinguish that, so they come out on to the southeast coast of the South Island here and they’re trying to get close to yellow eyed penguins, which we know are extremely stressed by having people around.
“People will run around and try and grab penguins and kind of pose them or going to nest sites and stressing the birds out there.”
It’s not just tourists doing this, Kiwis too are offenders, Seddon says.
“We feel we’re attuned with nature but increasingly more and more of us live in cities and we don’t have that much interaction with wildlife, so these kind of wildlife selfies that appear on social media are shaping our image of what’s wild, what’s wildlife, what’s wilderness.”
On the other hand, there are some positives wildlife selfies. It gets the public engaged with wildlife in a way that increases support for conservation, he says.
“So there’s a big question about, should you let people touch the animals, should they be taking photos? And some zoos have said well not at all, the only way this is acceptable is if the animal has complete choice about whether it engages with people, if it wants to leave it should just be free to leave.
“There are other institutions that have made a lot of money or engaged a lot of people by providing those opportunities for those wildlife selfies, so it’s a difficult one.”
