On my recent trip to Florida I witnessed 3 cases of people harrassing the wildlife. Maybe my defiinition of "harrassing" is too strong...I don't know.
1. While visiting the burrowing owls, I watched a woman with out-of-state tags walk up to the owl's hole, stick her cell phone down to the owls face (maybe 18" away) to snap photos. Then, wave her arms and make noises to try to make it move around. I guess the owl guarding the hole like a statue wasn't interesting enough for her. She was right next to the hole and could have collapsed the burrow.
2. At Circle B Bar, I heard a little girl scream and turned back to see a crowd of people pointing at something in the grass. Someone was 100' away from the crowd, but ran very quickly over there to see what they were pointing at. They then stepped off the path into the tall grass (probably 2 ft off the path into the grass) to pick up a 4 ft. snake. They held it up high for the crowd to see, holding it by the neck behind the head with the full length dangling. I don't know if they wanted to show off that they weren't afraid to pick up snakes or just hold it up for them to snap cell phone pics. They then dropped it back into the grass and took photos of it.
3. There is a boardwalk path leading up to the visitor center at Circle B Bar. A couple feet from the walkway was an Armadillo feeding on an ant hill. I saw him as I left the center and there was a crowd of people watching it. I stayed to see what they would do. A teenage boy (maybe 16-18) was there and his little sister kept saying, "touch it, touch it". His parents were watching. As he reached down to "pet" the Armadillo, I said to him in a stern voice: "Don't mess with the Armadillo". He quickly retracted his hand and they moved on. The parents said nothing.
I am not a confrontational person, but years ago I confronted someone who was harrassing an animal and it didn't go so well. The situation escalated and then the animal is in more danger. So I don't know if it's best to intervene or not. In the case of the woman and the owls, she got bored and left. Intervening seemed like it would have created a bad scene. The Amadillo was a little different and seemed like my warning was okay. The snake was just dissappointing...so so dissappointing.
How should you handle an active scene with someone harrassing wildlife? Do all of these scenarios constitute harrassing wildlife (I think so, but maybe wrong)?