Characterizing tourism benefits associated with top‐predator conservation in coastal British Columbia

Abstract

Facing public concern over costs related to top‐predator reintroductions and conservation, ecosystem services such as ecotourism are often used to evoke benefits that outweigh or offset those costs. Quantifying these benefits using rigorous scientific methods can provide confidence to policymakers and other stakeholders that predators can in fact deliver positive outcomes to people living alongside them. The evaluation of these benefits is often anecdotal or qualitative, however, and empirical quantifications are rare. In coastal marine ecosystems, sea otter reintroduction is seen as a conservation success to some but a bane to others. The contribution of sea otters (Enyhdra lutris) to tourism revenue is touted as a crucial ecosystem service benefit to offset the loss of shellfish harvesting and associated revenue, but remains unquantified, weakening the favourable reception of conservation action. The potential economic benefits of sea otters associated with tourism and the extent to which benefits are realized were evaluated based on: (i) choice‐experiment surveys of tourists; and (ii) interviews with tourism operators in British Columbia. Sea otters were a strong factor in people's choices regarding wildlife viewing, and sea otters could have large benefits for local economies. Alongside socio‐economic characteristics, tourism experience influences tourists’ preferences. Tourism operators did not perceive sea otters as strongly influencing tourist choice, highlighting the gap that can occur between the perception and the reality of tourist preferences, leading to missed opportunities for the alignment of economic development with conservation actions.

Integrating Multiple Perspectives Into an Impact Mitigation Program for Sustainable Whale and Dolphin Tourism Management

“…This study aimed to construct (Figure 4) a whale-dolphin impact mitigation program established on the concepts of operations management, carrying capacity and LAC, and sustainable financing while prior research (Bach and Burton, 2017;Lee et al, 2019b;Martone et al, 2020;Schwarzmann et al, 2021) has investigated domestic tourists' preference heterogeneity, we take an alternative approach to exploring the preferences of tourists with regard to establishing an impact mitigation program for sustainable whale-dolphin tourism. Our results contribute to the extant literature by improving on previous studies that have neglected to draw comparisons between domestic and international tourists across different attributes, such as time schedule management, vessel slowdown distance, maximum boat number, operational guidance, and a conservation fund.…”

“…The results also highlighted that unlike Australians, tourists from New Zealand and Europe were less likely to support the feeding of dolphins. In a study by Martone et al (2020), the tourists reported they were willing to pay CA$302 for a higher chance of viewing whales, compared to having a chance to view otters. This preference was a powerful predictor for tourists' choice of wildlife-viewing tour packages on the West Coast of Vancouver Island, in British Columbia, Canada.…”

The ghost of a giant – Six hypotheses for how an extinct megaherbivore structured kelp forests across the North Pacific Rim

“…Understanding changes in coastal ecosystem dynamics resulting from the extinction of the sea cow is particularly important given the role of kelp forests in supporting economically and culturally valuable species. Kelp forests contribute to a variety of ecosystem services such as food provisioning (Markel, 2011) and carbon sequestration (Wilmers et al., 2012) amongst several others (Filbee‐Dexter & Wernberg, 2018; Gregr et al., 2020; Martone et al., 2020; Smale et al., 2013). The diminished ecosystem function in the absence of sea cows has almost certainly reduced the production of these ecosystem services.…”

The Perspectives of Key Stakeholders on the Reintroduction of Apex Predators to the United Kingdom

“…Although there was no correlation found in the short answers between people agreeing that it would be good to have lynx (or any species), and that predation of deer would be a benefit to reintroductions, this was given as a large reason as to why it would be good to have lynx, as well as being given as a reason for wolves, and as a general benefit to any of these reintroduced species. As Martone et al [37] discovered, the idea of increased ecotourism from these reintroductions was also given as a benefit of reintroductions. Although not largely represented in this study, there was still the mention of 'ecotourism' and 'engaging the public in conservation' as benefits of the reintroductions.…”