I had no idea this was a thing.
'Thanks to a new breed of animal-spotting app, tourists who come across a lion or a leopard can crowdsource their sightings, sharing their locations with fellow parkgoers and drawing huge crowds to particular spots.
But according to South African National Parks, or SANParks, visitors might have to sharpen their other senses once again. Following an increase in road rage, speeding, and animal deaths, SANParks is considering a ban on these wildlife apps, the organization said in a statement.'
South African National Parks must have better cell coverage (and people ponying up for tourist data plans) than the parks we visited a few years ago in Botswana, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.
This sort of application makes perfect sense — but I can absolutely see how it would encourage less-thoughtful, less-scrupulous, or less-civil tourists to do things that would be unsafe for humans, unsafe for animals, and detrimental to the parks just so that they could get that picture of a giraffe. Good luck to SANParks in trying to manage this problem.
National Parks in South Africa May Ban Wildlife Apps
Sometimes disruptive technology is, well, disruptive.
