A group of endangered “galaxy frogs” are missing, presumed dead, after trespassing photographers reportedly destroyed their microhabitats for photos.
In early 2020, he found seven members of the “magical” species in the Western Ghats rainforest in India, but could not visit them during the Covid pandemic. When he went back later, the frogs had disappeared, according to a report from the ZSL.
At first he suspected brown mongooses of causing the damage, but they are not strong enough to overturn a log. Then he asked his tracker if he had seen anyone.
These nature photographers had been turning over logs in their search for the endangered species, according to the trackers. When they found them, they would capture and prop up the frogs for photos. But they didn’t wear gloves, even though these delicate creatures breathe through their skin and are incredibly sensitive.
“We’re really hopeful that we can encourage people to act more ethically so that incredible species like the galaxy frog can continue to thrive for millions more years.”
This is why you shouldn’t publicise anything like this, especially in India. Influencer culture has grown significantly in the last decade. Fuck these ghouls.
Most of the birding groups I follow will take down posts sharing locations of rare bird sightings for this exact reason. Some people are just jerks doing it for the clicks, but everyone has a desire to catch that one rare animal they never thought they’d have a chance to photograph, and then there are hoards more with the same thoughts, and people get caught up in their own moment. One person doing something dumb or intrusive usually isn’t so bad, but when you start getting dozens/hundreds of people with the same poor decisions going to one specific place, well, you end up with the rare frogs now becoming ultra-rare frogs.
This is one of the reasons you can no longer go caving in a lot of places in the usa without access from one of the spelunking societies. Tons of well known caves have been locked up because people would remove stuff, burn fires in them, spray paint shit on the walls, leave tons of trash, just overall being pieces of shit.
Caves are another great example! Being near the Appalachians, I’ve been to a bunch and there’s always a part of the tour that shows where people used to just bust off stuff for souvenirs, touch stuff and mess up the continued growth of the cave, burn marks from fires, etc. People just don’t seem to consider then accumulated impact of everyone using through doing the same exact thing.
You’re in a cave for crying out loud! You can’t get much more exemplary of how small actions of time cause significant change even to solid rock!
That’s so very disappointing.
How many followers on insta did they get though?
for a brief moment, we created shareholder value
Stories like this are kinda why I hope someone just presses the red button one day.
Yes someone should definitely murder billions of innocent humans. Nuclear annihilation definitely will magically spare the other creatures. /s
COVID times were better.
