No selfies, no phones: Why wildlife destinations are starting to say 'no' to tourists

As Indian tiger reserves implement a full ban on mobile phones during safaris, do we need to rethink how we behave as wildlife tourists?

You're riding in a Jeep through a sun-dappled forest in India, when right before your eyes, a majestic tiger appears from the undergrowth. You immediately reach for your phone, angling it so you can capture your awestruck face and the majestic cat in the same frame. Success – you get the shot right before the predator slinks away. 

Capturing such an image is the stuff of travel dreams. But thanks to a ruling from India's Supreme Court, it's a scene India's forests won't see for much longer. A supreme court ruling passed in November 2025 has led to the banning of mobile phones from the core tourism zones of some of the country's tiger reserves, deeming the devices – and the behaviour safari tourists exhibit when using them – too dangerous to humans and wildlife alike.

This February, a shocking viral video illustrated how bad things have got. In it, a wild tiger in Ranthambore National Park, Rajasthan is surrounded by multiple safari vehicles and is forced to pick its way around them to escape to the forest, while metres away, tourists snap photos and shout. The tiger appears cornered and stressed. In India, these kinds of overcrowded wildlife moments, termed "safari jams", are increasingly common.

The ruling feels like a response to the every-growing problem: that tourists no longer just want to see wildlife but want to document themselves seeing it, too.

The new rules for Indian tiger safaris

• Visitors are now required to put their mobile phones in a box before entering a tiger reserve, or to put it on silent and keep it in their bag. Per the legal ruling, the use of mobile phones within tourism zones of core tiger habitats is not permitted.

• Roads in tiger reserves cannot be used between dusk and dawn except for emergency vehicles.

• Fringe areas around tiger reserves have restricted development plans.

"People have got reckless in getting photos with the animals, and there have been incidents of the phone falling off and guides having to jump off the jeep to retrieve the phone," said Indian journalist Charukesi Ramadurai. "There was an incident where a child fell off a Jeep because the mother was taking a selfie and the child got jostled out of the way. The guide had to jump and pick up the child – the tiger was a few feet away."

India is home to more than 3,600 wild Bengal tigers, making up around 75% of the world's wild tiger population. Most of them live in one of the country’s 58 official tiger reserves, such as Ranthambore National Park in Rajasthan and Jim Corbett National Park in Uttarakhand. While the Bengal tiger continues to be an endangered species, conservation work in India has seen its numbers double between 2010 and 2022.

But with that increase in population has come an increased demand for tiger safaris, without essential respect for the wildlife, or an appreciation of how wild they can........

© BBC