It has become the mark of a happy modern safari. A tourist, sitting in a safari vehicle, takes a selfie with the gorgeous rhino in the background. The mood is elation on having seen this elusive, and endangered animal, but while you are excited about your shot and looking to sharing it far and wide, experts recently released a stark warning.
When it comes to rare wildlife sightings, poachers are given the upper hand the moment they come across selfies featuring the very animal they intend to poach. And social media users don’t even have to share the location physically, as many social media platforms are known for their geolocation features which often automatically tags the location on the picture. Animals such as rhino and elephant can be traced to the almost exact location of the animal and kill it.
Syndicates are becoming increasingly sophisticated and they are adopting technology to make their poaching more exact than ever before. Poachers are creating social media accounts, sometimes multiple accounts, across popular platforms like Instagram and Facebook, for the sole purpose of tracking animals.
This is why it so important for tourists to be aware of what kind of impact they can have on the conservation of these endangered animals, and rethink what they are sharing online.
Before the travel savvy tourist inside of you thinks that those photo sharing moments are now off the cards, there are ways that you can share your treasured images without alerting the poachers to the location of these animals. For starters, you should make an effort to make sure that the geotagging option is turned off or at least allows you the option to decide when you want to tag your location and when you don’t want to. This way the location and the time will both be a secret. Unless you are well aware of your settings, you never know what type of information you are unknowingly sharing.
This warning comes as the Kruger National Park, South Africa’s most famous and beloved wildlife reserves, is considering taking the drastic measures of blocking signal in the park to prevent images of wildlife being posted to the internet from the location in which they are taken. People are sure to be shocked to know that their beautiful images are being used with such malicious intent so a block of signal can seem a bit overboard for those who are unsure of the dire implications that posting images seems to be having.
Half of the 8000 rhinos poached in South Africa during a 10 year period running from 2008 to 2018 happened in the Kruger National Park.
The current selfie culture is not only being linked to poaching, but it is also being blamed for speeding in the park. When tourists share selfies to the web with geotagging, and someone else in the park sees the images, they might be inclined to rush to location in hopes of catching sight of the animal. Speeding in the park recently resulted in the death of a tourist and a giraffe, which once again raised concerns about apps and photos being shared.
