Masai Mara national reserve has banned Oltepesi Mara Camp from accessing game reserve after a video made rounds on social media of tourists being too close to a leopard.
In the video, a male tourist is seen very close with the wild animal while the vehicle door is open and he plays with the animal as he tries to take photos of it with his phone camera.
In a statement from the chief park administrator, Christine Koshal, she said the act was against the park rules and regulations and wildlife conservation ethics as a whole.
“This was purely putting the life of the tourist in a quagmire as well as your life as a guide,” she said.
She said all points of entry should ensure the directive is enforced.
Kenya Airports Parking Services (KAPS) which is the ticketing agent for Maasai Mara, was also asked to ensure no transaction is conducted with the parties mentioned.
Further, an Illinois woman was charged with disturbing wildlife after she was filmed approaching a bear in Yellowstone National Park.
Meanwhile, the wildebeest migration, one of United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) Wonders of the World has attracted hundreds of thousands of tourists improving the global tourist economy of the country.
The annual Great Migration of white-bearded wildebeest, also known as gnus, is a breathtaking sight that usually draws both local and international tourists to Kenya’s world famous game reserve.
Kenya’s tourism industry contributes 10 per cent of economic output and employ over 2 million people, a large percentage of whom lost their jobs due to the pandemic.
Data from the Ministry of Tourism website shows the sector raked in Sh163.5 billion in 2019 and it had been projected that the figure would grow by one per cent in 2020, but this was not to be, as international visitors fell to fewer than 500,000 in the first 10 months of 2020 as compared to 1.7 million in the same period in 2019, leading to a loss of Sh110 billion.
This was due to the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic as the country and the whole world locked-up their borders, to curb the spread of the pandemic.