A young tiger rests in the cool mud on a hot day at the St. Louis Zoo. S Boron, 2010
A widely utilized method of conservation funding is tourism. Whether you are visiting the zoo, a wildlife rescue center, or a refuge, visitor tickets and donations are usually the main source of funding for work done by these organizations. Beyond the funding for the conservation itself, these tourism opportunities can create an economic boon for the local community, which in turn can help sway public support for local wildlife (Barnes, 1996). A Cornell study completed in the ’90s found that visitors to a red wolf recovery area would bring in $170 million dollars annually (Segelken, 1997). However, research has shown that there may be conservation downsides to the very tourism that is intended to help the wildlife of concern.
In 2019 a group of researchers used an interesting method to figure out how tigers were coping with visitors at two important wildlife preserves in India. They collected feces at Bandhavgarh Tiger Reserve and Kanha Tiger Reserve to check for hormones, specifically glucocorticoids, which are a type of steroid that increases in the body during times of stress. They also tested for DNA to sort out who’s poo was who’s. What they found was that during high traffic seasons, there were much higher levels of these hormones across the board (Tyagi et. al., 2019). Now, these steroids can be really helpful in the short term; your body produces them as well, and for good reason. Think of how a burst of adrenaline can help you run faster or lift more weight in a moment of stress. The different hormones your body produces during stress help you respond more effectively in a variety of ways. However, too much stress isn’t healthy for anyone, and it can lead to bigger issues. In the case of this study, the high levels of glucocorticoids showed that tigers were under significantly more stress the more people that visited the park. These high levels could in turn lead to health issues up to and including how successfully the tigers reproduce, which is of course an important part of a species’ survival.
There is good news, however. Research has also been done to see how we can still get the benefits of tourism without harming our conservation goals and the answer is pretty simple: keep it down! A behavioral study done on pygmy marmosets found that animals were less likely to run away from visitors when they kept their volume low (Papworth, 2019). That means it’s possible that we can still visit wildlife in a way that supports both the species and the individual, just by staying as quiet as possible. Skipping the selfies might not hurt either.
References:
Abhinav Tyagi, Vinod Kumar, Sagar Kittur, Mahender Reddy, Sergey Naidenko and Andre Ganswindt. (2019). Physiological stress responses of tigers due to anthropogenic disturbance especially tourism in two central Indian tiger reserves. Conservation Physiology, 7(1). http://dx.doi.org.proxy.lib.ohio-state.edu/10.1093/conphys/coz045
Barnes, J.I. (1996). Economic characteristics of the demand for wildlife-viewing tourism in Botswana. Development South Africa, 13(3). https://doi.org/10.1080/03768359608439901
Papworth, S. (2019). Here’s why you need to keep your voice down when on a wildlife tour. The Conversation. https://theconversation.com/heres-why-you-need-to-keep-your-voice-down-when-on-a-wildlife-tour-114337
Segelken, R. (1997). Economic impact estimated at $170 million annually from red wolves in Great Smoky Mountains and eastern North Carolina. Cornell Chronicle. https://news.cornell.edu/stories/1997/03/reintroduced-wolves-face-little-opposition-and-boost-tourism-east-cornell-survey