Visitor satisfaction with a key wildlife tourism destination within the context of a damaged landscape

Wildlife tourism is a growing industry globally and visitor satisfaction is vital to ensure its long-term sustainability. The Lower Kinabatangan River is a premier wildlife tourism destination that is affected by surrounding land uses and needs careful management to ensure it continues to provide positive wildlife tourism experiences. As little is known about the motivations and satisfaction of tourists with this experience, a visitor survey was conducted along the Lower Kinabatangan River with 346 surveys completed. The attribute ‘Interest in viewing wildlife’ had the highest mean level of importance and satisfaction (mean?=?4.54 and 4.1, respectively, on a 5-point scale). Respondents were very satisfied with their wildlife tour experience (85%) and would recommend the experience to their friends (87%). However, almost half of respondents (47%) felt more needed to be done to protect the Kinabatangan River and wildlife. Although respondents were satisfied overall with their experience, they also expressed concerns over the number of boats and the protection of the River. Comments focused on the presence of rubbish in the River, intrusion of oil palm and the loss of forest. Many issues are beyond the management realms of tour operators but will impact on the future of the industry.     

Close encounters of the dolphin kind: Contrasting tourist support for feeding based interactions with concern for dolphin welfare

The tourism demand for close interactions with wildlife has increased in the last few decades. At the same time, public concern for animal welfare has also increased. Tourists are drawn to the thrill of close encounters with charismatic wildlife in their natural setting which depend on the reliability of wildlife being in a certain place at a given time. Food provisioning is a form of operant conditioning that uses food rewards to attract wildlife, promoting spatially and temporally reliable wildlife encounters that satisfy the desire for close encounters with wildlife. However, a range of effects counter to wildlife welfare and conservation may result from both the provisioning and close encounters. Our study examines visitors' attitude and support towards regulated provisioning and identifies a gap between visitors' desire for close-up encounters, their concern for dolphin welfare and the documented negative impacts of close encounters and food-provisioning.     

福建省食用型野生动物养殖业发展的制约因素与政策建议

通过对尤溪县和武夷山市等5个县市的实地调查发现,福建省食用型野生动物养殖业有所发展,但仍存在审批手续繁琐且难办证、资金不足、专业人员缺乏、技术不够成熟及市场不完善等制约因素,因而需采取简化审批手续、拓宽融资渠道、加强专业人才的培训、加快技术创新的步伐和规范市场行为等发展福建省食用型野生动物养殖业的措施。     

浅论经济野生动物资源的合理配置

论述经济野生动物资源合遁配置的有关问题，提出经济野生动物资源的合理配置应遵循经济效益、社会效益、生态效益的原则；完善的野生动物产权制度是经济野生动物资源合理配置的关键。经济野生动物资源的合理配置应采用以市场配置方式为基础，实行市场配置和政府计划配置相结合的方式，同时注重配置中监测手段的应用。     

Managing whale-watching as a non-lethal consumptive activity

Marine tourism is a new frontier of late-capitalist transformation, generating more global revenue than aquaculture and fisheries combined. This transformation created whale-watching, a commercial tourism form that, despite recent critiques, has been accepted as non-consumptive activity. This paper uses four academic discourses to critique whale-watching as a form of capitalist exploitation: (1) commercial whale-watching and global capitalist transformation, (2) global capitalist politics and the promoted belief that whale-watching is non-consumptive, (3) the inherent contradictions of non-consumptive capitalist exploitation, and (4) whale-watching as a common-pool resource. These discourses lead us to critique whale-watching practices in relation to the common capitalist sequence of resource diversification, exploitation, depletion and collapse. Using specific impact studies, we conclude that a sustainability paradigm shift is required, whereby whale-watching (and other forms of wildlife tourism) is recognized as a form of non-lethal consumptive exploitation, understood in terms of sub-lethal anthropogenic stress and energetic impacts. We argue the need for a paradigm shift in the regulation and management of commercial whale-watching, and present the case for a unified, international framework for managing the negative externalities of whale-watching. The relevance of the issues raised about neoliberal policy-making extends beyond whale-watching to all forms of wildlife and nature-based tourism.     

Transnational links in rhino poaching and the black‐market price of rhino horns

Rhino poaching in South Africa and India's major range states have been remarkably similar over time. Organised criminal syndicates manage an illegal supply chain of rhino horns from poachers, middlemen and corrupt authorities to East Asian black‐markets. In this paper, we use rhino poaching data from South Africa and India to examine the plausibility of transnational links and coordination in their supplies of rhino horns. We develop an innovative model of oligopolistic collusion in supply and find empirical evidence to support the theory, while controlling for rhino horn demand features, corruption, governance quality, and conservation policy. Furthermore, we propose an inventory management model of a criminal syndicate that controls the horn supply chain. The method retraces and forecasts black‐market prices and has potential applicability in estimating supply or demand elasticities. This paper is the first to suggest an oligopolistic feature of the poaching industry. It highlights the need to reorient conservation policy to account for possible coordination of rhino horn supplies between range states.     

Attitudes toward wildlife: The impact of physical attractiveness

The current research examined whether perceived physical attractiveness of a species impacted participants' attitudes toward supporting and protecting the species. A sample of undergraduate students attending a public university located in the northeast United States were surveyed. Results indicated that across and within species the physically attractive animal received more support for protection than did the physically unattractive animal. Results are discussed in terms of perceptual and cognitive fluency.     

Tourists’ willingness to pay for upstream restoration and conservation measures

Continuous wildlife loss worldwide and in the Masai Mara National Reserve in Kenya in particular motivated this study. Degradation of ecosystem services in the Mara basin is a cause of increasing pressure on the wildlife of the reserve. Wildlife tourists in the downstream area of the basin are beneficiaries of ecosystem services, particularly stream flow and water quality, provided in the upstream water catchment. This study aimed to estimate the willingness to pay (WTP) of wildlife tourists to cofinance conservation and restoration measures in the upstream of the Mara River Basin. The contingent valuation method was used with a valuation scenario framed in a payment for ecosystem services (PES) scheme. The relationship between WTP and several socio-economic variables was captured by an ordered logistic regression model. The mean WTP was estimated at US$41.6 (KES = 4314.8), with a potential annual revenue of over $US 3.5 million alone from tourists staying inside the reserve. This study contributes to clarifying the feasibility of a PES scheme in the Mara River Basin complementing former studies concerned with the willingness to accept conservation and restoration measures in the upstream of the basin. The study closes an important knowledge gap and paves the way for an institutional solution enabling PES implementation in the basin.     

野生动物旅游:概念、类型与研究框架

野生动物旅游源于欧美地区的野生动物猎杀和观赏活动,已经历了上百年的发展历史。近年来,野生动物旅游发展迅速,受到国外学界和业界的广泛关注。文章分析和总结了野生动物旅游的概念,依据不同的标准划分了野生动物旅游的类型;构建了野生动物旅游研究的内容框架,认为其由野生动物旅游内涵研究、野生动物旅游供给研究、野生动物旅游者研究、野生动物旅游影响研究、野生动物旅游地可持续发展研究等五个既相互独立、又相互关联的子系统构成。