Sri Lanka authorities have cracked down on safari companies operating in the country’s remote Yala National Park, famous for its leopard population.
The park has been closed to the major tour operators following anger among Yala safari guides, who complained that the bigger companies were building permanent camps in the park, defying regulations.
The sudden ban became effective on Sunday and applied to tourists who had already booked safari tours of the park.
Conservationists in Sri Lanka have ben warning that aggressive behaviour by safari operators in some national parks has endangered the wildlife and the ecology of wilderness areas.
“It’s become a status thing – everyone wants to put the leopard shot on Facebook,” said one conservationist.
The BBC reported earlier this year, after a visit to Yala national park by its correspondent Charles Haviland, that safari vehicles were breaking speed limits and that “marauding behaviour by drivers and tourists is grossly insensitive to fauna and flora”.
“The bad behaviour is all in aid of spotting the beautiful and elusive leopard – or drivers trying to show one to tourists hoping it will get them a fat tip,” said the BBC.
