When we speak about unethical wildlife tourism, we tend to refer primarily to the use of captive wildlife in tourism and the welfare implications for the wild animals involved. Of course, there are many such examples in our tourism space, from cub petting to elephant riding, and dolphin and tiger shows, to name a few. What we generally do not consider under the heading of unethical wildlife tourism are the many unprofessional practices involving wildlife in their natural habitat.
In the recent weeks, reports from the Kogatende Crossing in Tanzania's Serengeti National Park made social media headlines for their extreme and unprecedented scenes. We saw safari vehicles encroaching into the herds of wildebeest, obstructing their actual crossing, and clients allowed outside of their safari vehicles to get that special photo without any due consideration for the welfare of the wildlife.
This misconduct sparked a fierce but necessary debate around the ethics of wildlife tourism practices. However, we need to be able to recognise the more subtle unethical tourism practices before we can implement a more responsible way forward with regards to both captive and free-roaming wild animals.
