%0 Journal Article
%T The Negative Impacts of Whale-Watching
%A E. C. M. Parsons
%J Journal of Marine Biology
%D 2012
%I Hindawi Publishing Corporation
%R 10.1155/2012/807294
%X Whale watching is an international industry worth more than US$2 billion globally and is currently the greatest economic activity reliant upon cetaceans. However, there is concern that whale watching is detrimental to the target species. Numerous studies have shown that cetaceans exhibit behavioral changes in response to whale-watching boat traffic. Some of these behavioral changes involve inhibiting biologically important behaviors such as feeding and resting. There is convincing evidence for some species that these can translate into population-level effects such as reduced reproductive rates. Whale watching can also cause direct mortality through collisions between vessels and animals. The introduction of guidelines or regulations for whale watching has been the most common method of trying to mitigate the impacts of boat-based whale watching. However, there is great variety in the comprehensiveness of guidelines, and even if operators have guidelines, compliance with them can be poor. Compliance might be improved if guidelines have legal under-pinnings, with monitoring and enforcement or via pressure to comply by other operators and whale-watching tourists. Simple guidelines may be more easily complied with that ones requiring specialist knowledge. Likewise undertaking simple measures, such as establishing temporal or spatial ˇ°refugesˇ± protecting biologically important areas (e.g., feeding grounds) where whale-watching activity is prohibited, could be an appropriate mitigation strategy. 1. Introduction In 2009, it was estimated that 13 million tourists took trips to see whales, dolphins, and porpoises (cetaceans) in their natural habitat, as part of an industry that generated US$2.1 billion dollars (1.7 billion Euros) and employed 13,000 people in 119 countries [1, 2]. As a class of tourism, it is particularly desirable as it can specifically draw tourists to a region, with many whale-watching tourists only visiting locations because of the presence of cetaceans [3¨C5]. It has been estimated that potentially the industry would be worth an additional US$400 million and an additional 5,700 jobs, if maritime countries with cetacean populations, currently without whale-watching industries, were to develop them [2]. Whale watching is currently the greatest economic activity reliant upon cetaceans. Many environmental and animal welfare groups have promoted whale watching as a tourism activity, as an alternative to the consumptive use of whales, that is, commercial whaling. Indeed, whale watching in countries that are still actively hunting whales is
%U http://www.hindawi.com/journals/jmb/2012/807294/