Polynesia’s Easter Island has been witnessing a wave of inappropriate behavior by travelers as they are taking pictures that make it look like they're "picking the noses" of the island's enormous statues, known as moai.

Easter island is part of the Chilean territories and has been listed in the UNESCO World Heritage since 1995.

"Because of the ubiquitous nature of photography in our community, people take the same picture repeatedly. Once one person picks a nose of the moai, you can be sure there will be multiple thousands [of photos], because people are lemmings," director of the Rock Art Archive at the University of California - Los Angeles and the Director of the Easter Island Statue Project, Jo Anne Van Tilburg told CNN Travel, as she was bringing awareness over the need to opt for an appropriate personal and environmental behavior of the moai.

"There's nothing creative or interesting or humorous about it. The herd instinct is real," she elaborated.