The crowds of selfie-crazed day-trippers have already led to protests by residents and the introduction of tourist taxes by local governments in regions from Austria to Greece and Indonesia.
But it’s not just the views of mountain villages or historic town squares that are being overrun by the growing number of phone-wielding posers looking for content for their social media.
“The hunt for the perfect selfie” is “disrupting animal breeding and feeding patterns and trampling endangered plant species,” according to a team of Australian scientists, whose research was published by Elsevier in the journal Science of The Total Environment.
“Social media groups make it easy for people to identify the location of threatened plant species or the breeding sites of birds or other animals. The information spreads quickly and brings a huge influx of people to an area that would otherwise have been untouched,” said Rob Davis, a senior lecturer at Edith Cowan University.
“The Blue-crowned Laughing Thrush is a critically endangered bird species that is showing altered nesting behaviour as a result of disturbance by photographers,” said Bill Bateman, a professor at Curtin University.
Even the mighty whale shark is suffering, the team warned, with divers’ use of flash photography having a “negative effect” on the slow-moving and usually approachable gentle giants.
Orchids appear to be the hardest hit. The flowers, which are “highly sensitive to trampling and changes to their habitat,” are “particularly popular content for social media posts.”
