South African Tourism Services Association to ban all infant wildlife interaction

Are you one of those people who enjoys watching animals perform and interacting with them? Unfortunately, you might be doing more harm than good. 

Research conducted by the South African Tourism Services Association (SATSA) has found that watching animals perform, and walking and riding with them is dangerous. 

This has led to SATSA saying that it plans to ban all animal interactions that are harmful to the animals. 

Getaway magazine reports that SATSA is planning to ban all infant wildlife interactions. According to the report, these new guidelines will be implemented by the end of July 2020. 

The activities were found to be harmful to animals and unnatural for them.

This is because, according to the research that was done, it was found that the training techniques to get the animals to perform or even walk next to humans involved punishment. The research also found that it was not educational or of any conservation value to watch the animals perform.

Touching of infant animals was also found to be bad because, according to the report, removing infant animals from their mother was harmful. It was also unnatural for humans to touch animals in the wild. Thus, it is also unnatural for the animals to have humans touch them even when they are in the zoo or any nature reserve. 

Humans will also be banned from riding on the backs of animals such as elephants and ostriches.

What are your views on the ban? Let us know in the comments section below. 

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Image courtesy of iStock/ FamVeld