Is Ecotourism Worth As Much As It Costs?

Have you ever: Hiked a nature trail, fed a wild animal, been whale watching, or photographed wildlife?
If you answered yes to any of these activities, then you have participated in a form of ecotourism.
Generally, ecotourism can be defined as touring and experiencing nature. Within the past decade, this facet of tourism has expanded in order to spread and create awareness of conservation issues (Kruger, 2005). Many times people become inspired to support and protect struggling wildlife through viewing nature and witnessing interactions between animals and their environment. However, inspiration and increased conservation efforts by the general public are not the only products of ecotourism. There have been numerous studies that have proven that ecotourism can not only alter the behavior of certain animals but can create costs in their overall health. Some of the behaviors that can be affected by the presence of ecotourists include:

• Mating Behavior
• At the Stingray City Sandbar in the Grand Cayman Islands, tourists have the opportunity to get up close and feed the local stingrays. Stingrays are normally solitary animals but have conformed to group living at Stingray City.  Because of this crowding, the stingrays have begun to mate and are pregnant numerous times throughout the year as opposed to a seasonal mating pattern. Not only could increased pregnancies cause inbreeding among the population but expending unnecessary amounts of energy on increased reproduction due to crowding and the resulting aggression and injuries witnessed between these stingrays greatly diminishes their body condition (Corcoran et al., 2013 and Harvey and Shivji, 2013).
• Foraging Behavior
• New Zealand dolphin-watching trips provide tourists with the opportunity to see bottlenose dolphins in their natural habitat but at the same time deter dolphins away from their foraging areas as they try to dodge the boats (Cressey, 2014).
• The up and coming venture of "bear viewing"causes brown bears to change the areas in which they forage in order to bypass humans that are present. The increased distances they must travel to find food could eventually lead to altered and unhealthy nutrition in the bears’ diet (Rode et al., 2007).
• Anti-predator Behavior
• As with foraging and mating behavior, anti-predator behavior is directly correlated with survival and is imperative to all wildlife. Vigilance, or being aware of one's settings, is often connected with anti-predator behavior. Human presence tends to increase vigilance beyond a normal level in piping plovers. With decreased human presence, piping plovers will spend more time foraging and less time being vigilant (Burger, 1994).  

These are just a few examples of how ecotourism can negatively impact certain species. While it seems that ecotourism has such positive potential, the detrimental effects on the wildlife involved are too great. If ecotourism is to keep its overall positive effect and maintain its true purpose then there must be strict regulations about interference and interaction with the animals inhabiting the areas that are being visited by humans.

Citations:

Burger, J. 1994. The effect of human disturbance on foraging behavior and habitat use in piping plover (Charadrius melodus). Estuaries, 17 (3): 695-701.

Corcoran, M., Wetherbee, B., Shivji, M., Potenski, M., Chapman, D., Harvey, G. 2013. Supplemental feeding for ecotourism reverses diel activity and alters movement patterns and spatial distribution of the southern stringray, Dasyatis Americana. PLoS ONE, 8 (3): e59235.

Cressey, D. 2014. Ecotourism rise hits whales. Nature, 512 (7515): 358.

Harvey, G. and Shivji, M. 2013. Tourist-fed stingrays change their ways. The Science Teacher, 80 (5): 21-22.

Huang, B., Lubarsky, K., Teng, T., Blumstein, D. 2011. Take only pictures, leave only…fear? The effect of photography on the West Indian anole Anolis cristatellus. Current Zoology, 57 (1): 77-82.

Klein, M., Humphrey, S., Percvial, H. 1995. Effects of ecotourism on distribution of waterbirds in a wildlife refuge. Conservation Biology, 9 (6): 1454-1465.

Kruger, O. 2005. The role of ecotourism in conservation: panacea or Pandora’s box? Biodiversity & Conservation, 14 (5): 579-600.

Rode, K., Farley, D., Fortin, J., Robbins, C. 2007. Nutritional consequences of experimentally introduced tourism in brown bears. Journal of Wildlife Management, 71 (3): 929-939.

Treves, A. 2000. Theory and method in studies of vigilance and aggregation. The Association for the Study of Animal Behaviour, 60 (6): 711-722.