SA Tourism’s jungle bungle – Which South Africa is this?

A red-faced department of tourism tried to cover up its spectacular “bungle in the jungle” on Sunday by deleting a tweet celebrating South African wildlife which had at least four species of animal not found here.

Intended to push South African tourism via our wildlife attractions, the tweet said: “Our flora and fauna remain one of our greatest assets.”

Not SA’s animals

The advert depicted a rhino, zebra, giraffe and several others but also included a tiger, Asian elephants, a tapir and a reindeer, which are not found in South Africa.

A number of bothered people aired their anger on social media platforms.

Roshu (dufhadzwa) tweeted: “Coz why do we have tigers and tapir and reindeer?”

Rupert Koopman said: “But this level of carelessness when we have the skilled people is sadly endemic in some departments now.”

‘Incompetence’

The head of Outraged South African Citizens against Rhino Poaching (Oscap) Kim da Ribeira said this was an example of true incompetence.

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She said this sent a message of there being very little interested in SA’s wildlife and it was not just with the tourist side of things but also with the department of environmental affairs.

She said this was such a good example of how poorly these departments viewed the importance of SA’s wildlife.

“That picture had animals which were not part of our wildlife. Whoever has chosen the picture has no idea what they were doing,” said Da Ribeira.

“One of the hashtags had ‘share South Africa’ but this is not South Africa and it does not reflect South Africa.”

a Ribeira added that in any production of any tweet, article, SMS or any material advertised, there should be a sign off on that material.

“It is obvious no one is paying attention and whoever holds the position of authority to release a tweet like this is not competent to hold a position like that,” she said.

“I would like to know, who wrote this and where did they find the image? The image is not even credited to anyone. Where did they even source this? It seems like nothing matters.”

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However, the department later deleted the tweet.

Da Ribeira said it was a little too late.

“This is just sad,” she said.

It would appear the image was taken from Shutterstock – a US-based provider of stock photography – but clearly no-one checked it before it went out or, if they did, they need a quick refresher on African wildlife.