Chinese tourists draw online flap after wild gull selfies given the bird
Two travellers posing for photos after grabbing migratory red-billed gulls at Yunnan park are latest mainland holidaymakers condemned for bad behaviour
Bad behaviour by mainland tourists has once again attracted an outpouring of criticism online, mainland media report.
This time boorish travellers targeted migratory red-billed gulls at a park in Yunnan province on Monday, the news portal People.cn reported.
Pictures posted online showed a man seizing one of the wild gulls by its feet as he posed for a selfie in Kunming’s Cuihu Park, or Green Lake Park.
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A second man at the park grabbed another gull by the feet and held it aloft as he took his photograph with it, according to the report.
When other visitors nearby tried to stop the man grabbing the gull, he reportedly said: “It’s just for a photo, it’s not to catch it.”
The park, which features a number of pavilions built on small islands linked by bridges is known as a habitat for red-billed gulls, according to the report.
During the past 30 years, the park has attracted large numbers of the gulls during the winter and become a popular tourist attraction.
Wildlife experts criticised the behaviour of the visitors at the park saying they could damage the gulls’ wings by grabbing them by the feet.
In January, mainland authorities said they would start to rank the different levels of bad behaviour of “uncivilised” mainland tourists so the travel industry could share data and choose whether to do business with them.
Mainland tourists have gained an embarrassingly bad reputation around the world after numerous reports of Chinese travellers behaving badly.
State media branded a group of mainland airline passengers “barbarians” in December last year after they scalded a Thai stewardess with hot water and noodles and threatened to blow up the plane during a flight from Bangkok to Nanjing.
Mainland air travellers have also been arrested for fighting on aircraft, and others detained for opening the doors of a plane while preparing for take-off.
Other tourists have ignored warning signs to climb onto historic monuments to pose for selfie photographs.
