The Customer Isn't Always Right-Conservation and Animal Welfare Implications of the Increasing Demand for Wildlife Tourism

Tom P Moorhouse; Cecilia A L Dahlsjö; Sandra E Baker; Neil C D'Cruze; David W Macdonald

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0138939

The Customer Isn't Always Right-Conservation and Animal Welfare Implications of the Increasing Demand for Wildlife Tourism

PLoS One. 2015 Oct 21;10(10):e0138939. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0138939. eCollection 2015.

Authors

Tom P Moorhouse¹, Cecilia A L Dahlsjö¹, Sandra E Baker¹, Neil C D'Cruze², David W Macdonald¹

Affiliations

¹ Wildlife Conservation Research Unit, Department of Zoology, University of Oxford, Recanati-Kaplan Centre, Tubney, United Kingdom.
² Wildlife Conservation Research Unit, Department of Zoology, University of Oxford, Recanati-Kaplan Centre, Tubney, United Kingdom; World Animal Protection (formerly the World Society for the Protection of Animals), London, United Kingdom.

Abstract

Tourism accounts for 9% of global GDP and comprises 1.1 billion tourist arrivals per annum. Visits to wildlife tourist attractions (WTAs) may account for 20-40% of global tourism, but no studies have audited the diversity of WTAs and their impacts on the conservation status and welfare of subject animals. We scored these impacts for 24 types of WTA, visited by 3.6-6 million tourists per year, and compared our scores to tourists' feedback on TripAdvisor. Six WTA types (impacting 1,500-13,000 individual animals) had net positive conservation/welfare impacts, but 14 (120,000-340,000 individuals) had negative conservation impacts and 18 (230,000-550,000 individuals) had negative welfare impacts. Despite these figures only 7.8% of all tourist feedback on these WTAs was negative due to conservation/welfare concerns. We demonstrate that WTAs have substantial negative effects that are unrecognised by the majority of tourists, suggesting an urgent need for tourist education and regulation of WTAs worldwide.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Animal Welfare*
Animals
Animals, Wild*
Conservation of Natural Resources*
Recreation*
Travel*

Grants and funding

This study was funded by World Animal Protection (http://www.worldanimalprotection.org.uk). SB was supported by the Humane Society International, UK and The Baker Trust during preparation of this manuscript. One author (NCDC) occupies a shared role between World Animal Protection and University of Oxford, and contributed to the experimental design, some aspects of the data collection and writing of the manuscript. The bulk of data collection, refining the study design and all of the analyses were carried out by TPM and CALD. The decision to publish was made jointly, and the authors are satisfied that the work represents an objective, impartial and fair assessment of the subject area.