Increased Use Levels, Effort, and Spatial Distribution of Tourists Swimming with Dwarf Minke Whales at the Great Barrier Reef

Curnock, Matt; Birtles, Alastair; Valentine, Peter

doi:10.3727/154427313x13659574649867

Cited by 12 publications

(11 citation statements)

References 19 publications

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“…Whale watching tourism with a particular focus on minke whales occurs in several high latitude regions worldwide based on seasonal feeding aggregations (e.g., West Scotland, Iceland, Canada's Gulf of St. Lawrence), as well as in Australia's Great Barrier Reef, which provides habitat for a presumed breeding aggregation of dwarf minke whales (Valentine et al, 2004;O'Connor et al, 2009). Whale watching of minke whales is typically vessel-based, with the Great Barrier Reef case being a unique swim-with activity, that has been managed by the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority since 2003 (Valentine et al, 2004;Mangott et al, 2011;Curnock et al, 2013). To better understand the potential impacts of vessel-based tourism interactions on minke whales and other baleen whales, recent research has focussed largely on behavioral responses to vessels, including changes in swim speed and direction, diving behavior, and decreased time spent resting or feeding (New et al, 2015).…”

Section: Tourismmentioning

confidence: 99%

Common and Antarctic Minke Whales: Conservation Status and Future Research Directions

Risch

Norris²,

Curnock

et al. 2019

Front. Mar. Sci.

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Minke whales comprise some of the most widely distributed species of baleen whales, some populations of which are still regularly targeted by commercial whaling. Here, we review the conservation status of common (Balaenoptera acutorostrata) and Antarctic (Balaenoptera bonaerensis) minke whale populations, against the backdrop of ongoing whaling operations and other anthropogenic threats, including climate change, entanglement in fishing gear, ship strikes, and noise pollution. Although some coastal minke whale populations have been studied in detail, others, which inhabit remote and ecologically sensitive locations, such as the Antarctic ice shelf, are among the least understood populations of marine mammals. The unresolved taxonomy of dwarf minke whales further highlights some of the existing knowledge gaps concerning these species. Due to their relatively small size and elusive behaviors, large uncertainties exist for almost all minke whale populations with respect to behavior, migratory routes and winter distributions, hindering effective conservation and management. However, recent advances in research technology, such as passive acoustic monitoring (PAM), unmanned aerial systems (UAS), multisensor recording tags, and machine learning assisted photo-identification, are increasingly being applied to study minke whales and their habitat, and are starting to open new windows into their life history and ecology. In future research, these non-and less-invasive methods should be integrated in larger-scale comparative studies aiming to better understand minke whale behavior, ecological interactions and their varying habitats to drive and support effective species conservation.

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Section: Tourismmentioning

confidence: 99%

Common and Antarctic Minke Whales: Conservation Status and Future Research Directions

Risch

Norris²,

Curnock

et al. 2019

Front. Mar. Sci.

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“…Similarly, 52% of 320 turtle-watching tourists sampled at Mon Repos (where only tour groups are allowed on the beach) during the 2004-2005 turtle nesting season stated there were too many people in their tour group (Curnock, Birtles, Gatley, & Valentine, 2005). The average tour group size at Mon Repos was 50 people, while JTE tour groups only occasionally exceeded 15 participants.…”

Section: Self-reported Satisfaction With the Turtle-watchingmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Development of an Interpretive Experience to Foster Positive Tourist Encounters and Manage Turtle Tourism in Northwest Western Australia: Implications for Further Research

Smith¹,

Newsome²,

Lee³

2014

Tourism in Marine Environments

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fund turtle conservation projects, and by encouraging tourists to have a conservation ethic and contribute financially to turtle conservation (Landry & Taggart, 2010;, 2005a, 2005bTisdell, Nantha, & Wilson, 2007. Tourism based on viewing nesting marine turtles occurs both formally (guided) and informally (free independent travelers) at many locations throughout the world, including Costa Rica, Malaysia, South Africa, Brazil, America, THE DEVELOPMENT OF AN INTERPRETIVE EXPERIENCE TO FOSTER POSITIVE TOURIST ENCOUNTERS AND MANAGE TURTLE TOURISM IN NORTHWEST WESTERN AUSTRALIA: IMPLICATIONS FOR FURTHER RESEARCHL. SMITH,* D. NEWSOME,* AND D. LEE † *School of Environmental Science, Murdoch University, Perth, Western Australia †Tourism Programme, Murdoch University, Perth, Western AustraliaIn understanding the importance of interpretation in guiding sustainable turtle tourism, this article reports on the effect of an interpretation program, the Jurabi Turtle Experience (JTE), on the behavior of turtle-watching tourists at the Jurabi Coastal Park, on the Northwest Cape of Western Australia. Ninety-seven turtle-watching tourists in the Jurabi Coastal Park, including people who attended the JTE and others who did not, were sampled during the peak turtle nesting season (December-January) using participant observation and a questionnaire. People participating in the JTE showed increased compliance with a behavioral code of conduct for turtle watching and higher satisfaction with the experience compared with people who did not participate. These increases strengthen the case for continuing the JTE and possibly requiring all Jurabi Coastal Park visitors to participate in a JTE-like experience.

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“…The only known predictable aggregation of dwarf minke whales occurs in the Australian offshore waters of the northern Great Barrier Reef (GBR) each year throughout the Australian winter months [3]. This aggregation supports a local swim-with-whales tourism industry [2] [3]. The predictable nature of this aggregation has also enabled dedicated research of dwarf minke whales, which has contributed to seminal work on dwarf minke whale biology [4], behavior [5], and assessment and management of swim-with-whales activities [2].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This aggregation supports a local swim-with-whales tourism industry [2] [3]. The predictable nature of this aggregation has also enabled dedicated research of dwarf minke whales, which has contributed to seminal work on dwarf minke whale biology [4], behavior [5], and assessment and management of swim-with-whales activities [2]. Outputs from this work have informed and shaped management policies and expanded knowledge of both the subspecies in general and, specifically, the interactions with the tourism industry.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Outputs from this work have informed and shaped management policies and expanded knowledge of both the subspecies in general and, specifically, the interactions with the tourism industry. The uniqueness of this aggregation presents an opportunity to conduct research and improve the knowledge base for a poorly understood oceanic rorqual whale, as well as a responsibility to ensure that tourism activities are managed sustainably [2] [3] [5].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Individual Minke Whale Recognition Using Deep Learning Convolutional Neural Networks

Konovalov¹,

Hillcoat²,

Williams³

et al. 2018

GEP

Self Cite

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The only known predictable aggregation of dwarf minke whales (Balaenoptera acutorostrata subsp.) occurs in the Australian offshore waters of the northern Great Barrier Reef in May-August each year. The identification of individual whales is required for research on the whales' population characteristics and for monitoring the potential impacts of tourism activities, including commercial swims with the whales. At present, it is not cost-effective for researchers to manually process and analyze the tens of thousands of underwater images collated after each observation/tourist season, and a large data base of historical non-identified imagery exists. This study reports the first proof of concept for recognizing individual dwarf minke whales using the Deep Learning Convolutional Neural Networks (CNN).The "off-the-shelf" Image net-trained VGG16 CNN was used as the feature-encoder of the per-pixel sematic segmentation Automatic Minke Whale Recognizer (AMWR). The most frequently photographed whale in a sample of 76 individual whales (MW1020) was identified in 179 images out of the total 1320 images provided. Training and image augmentation procedures were developed to compensate for the small number of available images. The trained AMWR achieved 93% prediction accuracy on the testing subset of 36 positive/MW1020 and 228 negative/not-MW1020 images, where each negative image contained at least one of the other 75 whales. Furthermore on the test subset, AMWR achieved 74% precision, 80% recall, and 4% false-positive rate, making the presented approach comparable or better to other state-of-the-art individual animal recognition results.

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Increased Use Levels, Effort, and Spatial Distribution of Tourists Swimming with Dwarf Minke Whales at the Great Barrier Reef

Cited by 12 publications

References 19 publications

Common and Antarctic Minke Whales: Conservation Status and Future Research Directions

Common and Antarctic Minke Whales: Conservation Status and Future Research Directions

The Development of an Interpretive Experience to Foster Positive Tourist Encounters and Manage Turtle Tourism in Northwest Western Australia: Implications for Further Research

Individual Minke Whale Recognition Using Deep Learning Convolutional Neural Networks

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