The natural world is wonderful.
The mountains, canyons, waterfalls, and coral reefs of our Earth are catnip for the soul.
They encourage us to leave our gray, lifeless cities, and venture out into the wild, and,
for some dummies... completely trash whatever we find there.
Want to experience the natural wonders of our planet?
You better make sure you get there ahead of these bozos.
Duck and run
Mother Nature spent hundreds of thousands of years directing wind against a lump of
Oregon rock, lovingly shaping it into an uncanny likeness of a duck's head — only for a bunch
of teens in 2016 to destroy all that hard work in a matter of seconds …
"Dude.
Holy s---."
"Got 'em!"
The so- called "Duckbill" was a popular tourist attraction in the Pacific Northwest, with
many visitors to Cape Kiwanda choosing to bypass the safety ropes and pose on top of
the sturdy sandstone formation.
So it really took some effort for the vandals to ruin the fun for everybody.
The worst part?
In a reverse Scooby-Doo, the gang of teens totally got away with it, because no one meddled
enough, apparently.
They were never caught or identified.
Even if they were, Oregon state law means they'd only get a fine of $435 for mucking
up the duck, which is just...daffy.
You'd think they'd get a...bigger bill.
"You're despicable."
Cruisin' for a bruisin'
In March 2017, the captain of the British cruise ship Caledonian Sky drove his humongous
vessel over the top of a delicate stretch of Indonesian coral reef known as the "underwater
Amazon," which sounds like how Aquaman orders his cheap H-D-M-I cables…but it's called
that because of the rich and fragile rainforest-like biodiversity on display.
The ship grounded on the reef as part of a birdwatching trip for the nearly 100 tourists
onboard, badly damaging some 1,600 square meters of coral.
To make matters worse, the ship then called in a tugboat to drag it off, causing yet more
damage to this fragile ecosystem.
Needless to say, the locals weren't happy, prompting a massive outcry and at least one
death threat via YouTube, under an old video of the crew dancing to their version of "Gangnam
Style"…
"Caledonian style!
Caledonian style!"
Hopefully "careless coral murder" is no longer part of the "Caledonian Style."
Troop goof
The so-called "Goblins" of Goblin Valley State Park in Utah are one of the most surreal sights
in North America: Huge, mushroom-shaped boulders perched atop narrow sandstone stalks, formed
over millions of years by a fluke of erosion, these rocks can be found nowhere else on Earth.
For 99-point-9 percent of visitors, they're a natural marvel.
But for Boy Scout troop leader Glenn Taylor and his fellow scout supervisors, they were
a hazard.
In an alleged flash of paranoia back in 2013, Taylor realized that if one of these teetering
rocks happened to be shoved by an idiot just as some scouts were passing beneath, it could
kill them.
Rather than let this unlikely scenario come to pass, Glenn decided to beat his hypothetical
idiot to the punch, as his scouting buddies cheered him on ...
"Wiggle it / Just a little bit" “WOAH!”
170 millions of years of history, crassly obliterated.
But what's worse?
Pointlessly destroying a treasure of the natural world?
Or singing this song while you're doing it?
"I wanna see you wiggle it / Just a little bit / As it grooves"
Seems kinda like a toss-up.
Cliffs nopes
Look up from the base of the Ireland's Cliffs of Moher, and you'll see 300 million years
of history unfolding spectacularly before your eyes.
Climbing 390 feet out the Atlantic, the cliffs are world famous among geologists, ornithologists,
and plenty of others who have job titles ending with "-ologist."
So you can imagine the "-ologist" community's collective horror when they strolled down
to the cliffs one morning in 2013 to find they'd been plastered in terrible graffiti.
Covering an 8 by 6 foot section of cliff, the graffiti replaced the natural beauty of
the coastline with an abstract design resembling those Zubaz pants your gym teacher wore in
the nineties.
Fortunately, the graffiti was cleaned off by experts without damaging the cliffs.
The work was tracked to a French art collective who spent a couple of weeks tagging spots
throughout the Emerald Isle.
We know this because they uploaded their exploits to Vimeo, but were soon hit with so many negative
comments they yanked the video and shut down their social media accounts.
300 million-year-old cliffs: One.
Garbage art: Zero.
One tree kill
For centuries, the Tree of Ténéré was the only tree for 250 square miles in the blistering
heat of the Sahara Desert.
As Atlas Obscura illustrates, its mere existence in such a hostile environment, due to its
unusually deep roots, was a miracle.
So of course in 1973, a drunk Libyan truck driver, following a centuries-old caravan
route that passed nearby, struck the ancient tree, splitting it in half.
Today, a metal sculpture stands where the tree once stood.
Sure, the driver wasn't technically a tourist, but he had to have been drinking like a Spring
Breaker on a booze cruise to not avoid the only obstacle in sight for 250 square miles.
Brooooo!
“Ahh!”
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