People like taking selfies, there's no denying that fact. But sometimes, when animals are involved, things might turn sour as one dolphin in Argentina was recently killed in a selfie session with tourists.
According to a local newspaper in Argentina La Capital, a group of tourists dragged a baby dolphin from the ocean to take pictures with the animal. Apparently the session took too long which led the dolphin to die of suffocation.
One observer told the newspaper that the tourists let the dolphin die. The dolphin was young and came to the shore when the tourists dragged it from the water. Everyone then started taking pictures and touching it instead of returning it to the sea.
This isn't the first time a young dolphin died in Argentina due to tourists having a selfie session. Just last February, an endangered La Plata dolphin was killed off a beach on a resort town of Santa Teresita.
This issue of animals getting harmed by these selfies is actually not a new phenomenon. In almost every week, a new incident involving animals will be on the news. Social media has made these exotic animals adorable and acceptable but what it hides is the suffering behind the images according to National Geographic in one article.
By sharing and liking posts that feature exotic animas, users put these animals at risk by increasing their popularity. It creates unwanted attention that makes the animal appealing and makes an impression that its safe to approach them. But what this does is in endangers the animals which could lead to deaths such as this.
In a 2011 study by PLOS One, people would more likely make chimpanzees their pets if they saw images of primates standing next to a person. While another study shows that 10% of the comments on a video of a loris said that they wanted one as a pet.
