And until forestry gets a hold of Stoll, we asked an expert, a wildlife veterinarian, about what these tourists should have done or should do if they encounter a wild animal.
Dr Isabelle Paquet-Durand, Director, Belize Wildlife Referral Clinic
"As much as those people were fascinated and passionate about nature it was definitely not okay and definitely harassment because the proper way to respond to such. Sighting is to freeze and let the animal move away without any interaction whatsoever no running after it no, talking to it and definitely absolutely no touching."
"So we actually present that as a common myth that if a human has touched baby mom will absolutely not take it back because many times the moms may take it back but in some species it is a huge problem if there is human scent on it it is nothing necessarily described fro cats but the problem is that it stresses the animal terribly and that stress can cause serious harm and it is of course a huge risk to the human too because the mama must be somewhere close by and she would defend her cub so there is a huge risk to the human from that interaction as well as to the cub."
