Family Accused of Deliberately Destroying Ancient Indigenous Wall Paintings: ‘A Slap in the Face’ (PHOTOS)

Visitors are expected to respect their surroundings and refrain from causing any damage to the ecosystem when visiting natural parks and enjoying nature — but it seems one family didn't get the memo.

On Reddit, someone claimed that during a hike in the Canadian wilderness they witnessed a family purposely destroying ancient wall paintings by scratching them up.

"This man and his kids deliberately scratched up 1,000-year-old indigenous wall paintings with walking sticks in a Canmore Alberta canyon hike," the individual captioned their post via Reddit, sharing a series of photos.

The first image shows the rocks from a distance, with a group of individuals gathered together.

Another photo provides a close-up look at the rocks and reveals numerous scratches etched into the stone, while a different image on Reddit shows the rock paintings before they were allegedly vandalized.

When asked if anyone said anything to the alleged vandals, the individual claimed a "tour guide hollered at him and his sh---y entourage walked away quickly."

In the comments, the OP [original poster] also shared they researched how to report the incident to the appropriate local nature agencies.

In the comments section, Reddit users were baffled by the apparent vandalism to the ancient rock paintings.

"What did they think would happen? Why the hell would they do such a thing? It hurts everyone, and is a slap [in] the face to natives and to the entire [province]," one person wrote.

"That's more than mildly infuriating. It's downright disrespectful. And illegal," another commented.

"It's not like it can be fixed, either. It's not some spray paint on a building. Humans shouldn't be allowed near anything historic, unfortunately," another user weighed in.

"Absolutely report this, it must be breaking one or more laws. They should be disgusted with themselves, I'll never understand destroying artifacts," someone else shared.