A classic example of what not to do on an African safari

Posted by Olerato Ramafsi on 5 January 2023

A video surfaced online of cheetahs making a kill in the Maasai Mara before dozens of safari vehicles swarmed the endangered species to take footage.

Going on safari is an exciting experience for tourists who visit our nature reserves, although the privilege of seeing a kill in progress is a scene not experienced by everyone.

Filmed from a distance, the footage shows an antelope grazing the plains before two cheetahs suddenly dashed towards the unsuspecting antelope that tried to escape to no avail.

After successfully bringing the antelope down and beginning to feed, safari vehicles which had previously been parked at a safe distance began to converge on the scene so that passengers could ‘get a better look.’

The domino effect was started by a dark-coloured Land Cruiser after hitting the gas and began to drive closer to the animals before all the other cars followed in pursuit.

The occurrence caused mass hysteria as guides began yelling at each other from their vehicles, honking their horns before forming a circle around the animals while the excited passengers took out their phones to record the rare sighting.

A woman can be heard in the background asking, ‘Are they stupid?’

The video was originally shared by a Twitter account using the name @DrumChronicles and has since received over 180 000 views.

Conservationists who have seen the video referred to the scenes as appalling and said the footage underlined the biggest problem since the Kenyan government began lifting most of the pandemic-related travel restrictions.

Overcrowding at popular safari spots was a serious problem before the pandemic, with the return of non-restricted tourism, the issue has come back at a rapid speed and ‘appears to be fueled by the heightened travel demand caused by the previous Covid restrictions,’ said Judy Kepher-Gona, director of the Sustainable Travel and Tourism Agenda, an organisation based in Kenya which adjudicates for stricter monitoring in the nature reserve.

According to conservationists, the problem with ‘aggressive tourism is that guests are hungry for social media moments while tour companies are also trying to make up for losses incurred during the pandemic.’

Cheetahs are naturally timid creatures and such instances could have easily scared the animals away from a hard-earned kill. Vehicles that get too close to sightings can also reveal an animal’s position to prey or other predators, disrupting the natural order of the food chain.

The large numbers of vehicles and tourists in the Maasai Mara are also threatening the passage of the Great Migration where more than one million zebras, wildebeests and gazelles move through the reserve in July and August which also happens to be the peak travel months for Kenya.

Check the footage below:

 


Picture: Screenshot

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