Pretending to surf on the back of a turtle isn’t exactly illegal. It certainly isn’t smart, respectful or really cool either. But when a Gold Coast man posted of photo of himself and a friend doing just that on Facebook, one would assume he was expecting nothing more than a few laughs. Instead, he’s looking at a potential $20k fine for being, well, a bit of a kook.
“Surfed a tortoise on zee weekend.. gnarly duddddeeeee,” Ricky Rogers commented. The photo has since gone on to be shared more than 9,000 times and counting, reaching organizations like the Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service, who are now investigating whether or not Rogers and his friend were “interfering with a natural resource” on Fraser Island, even though they believe the turtle may have been dead when the photo was taken. Unsurprisingly, many of the comments from the original photo are sharing outrage, with a spokesman from the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals saying, “These guys are just complete idiots – there’s no way they should be doing what they were doing.”
I’d guess many people won’t argue with the complete idiots assessment from the RSPCA. Nobody’s immune from making that one dumb social media post that blows up in their face, this one just might cost Ricky Rogers and his friend a good chunk of change.
