IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/plo/pone00/0127345.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Multi-Year Impacts of Ecotourism on Whale Shark (Rhincodon typus) Visitation at Ningaloo Reef, Western Australia

Author

Listed:
  • R L Sanzogni
  • M G Meekan
  • J J Meeuwig

Abstract

In-water viewing of sharks by tourists has become a popular and lucrative industry. There is some concern that interactions with tourists with ecotourism operations might harm sharks through disruption of behaviours. Here, we analysed five years of whale shark (Rhincodon typus) encounter data by an ecotourism industry at Ningaloo Reef, Western Australia, to assess the impact of ecotourism interactions on shark visitation, within the context of the biological and physical oceanography of the region. Our data base consisted of 2823 encounter records for 951 individual whale sharks collected by ecotourism operators between 2007 and 2011. We found that total encounters per whale shark and encounters per boat trip increased through time. On average, whale sharks re-encountered in subsequent years were encountered earlier, stayed longer and tended to be encountered more often within a season than sharks that were only encountered in a single year. Sequential comparisons between years did not show any patterns consistent with disturbance and the rate of departure of whale sharks from the aggregation was negatively correlated to the number of operator trips. Overall, our analysis of this multi-year data base found no evidence that interactions with tourists affected the likelihood of whale shark re-encounters and that instead, physical and biological environmental factors had a far greater influence on whale shark visitation rates. Our approach provides a template for assessing the effects of ecotourism interactions and environmental factors on the visitation patterns of marine megafauna over multiple years.

Suggested Citation

  • R L Sanzogni & M G Meekan & J J Meeuwig, 2015. "Multi-Year Impacts of Ecotourism on Whale Shark (Rhincodon typus) Visitation at Ningaloo Reef, Western Australia," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 10(9), pages 1-18, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0127345
    DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0127345
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0127345
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0127345&type=printable
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1371/journal.pone.0127345?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Cisneros-Montemayor, A.M. & Sumaila, U.R. & Kaschner, K. & Pauly, D., 2010. "The global potential for whale watching," Marine Policy, Elsevier, vol. 34(6), pages 1273-1278, November.
    2. David W. Sims & Victoria A. Quayle, 1998. "Selective foraging behaviour of basking sharks on zooplankton in a small-scale front," Nature, Nature, vol. 393(6684), pages 460-464, June.
    3. Alison V Towner & Les G Underhill & Oliver J D Jewell & Malcolm J Smale, 2013. "Environmental Influences on the Abundance and Sexual Composition of White Sharks Carcharodon carcharias in Gansbaai, South Africa," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 8(8), pages 1-11, August.
    4. Catlin, James & Jones, Roy, 2010. "Whale shark tourism at Ningaloo Marine Park: A longitudinal study of wildlife tourism," Tourism Management, Elsevier, vol. 31(3), pages 386-394.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Shannon E Murphy & Ian Campbell & Joshua A Drew, 2018. "Examination of tourists’ willingness to pay under different conservation scenarios; Evidence from reef manta ray snorkeling in Fiji," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 13(8), pages 1-15, August.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Perisho, Shaun T. & Kelty-Stephen, Damian G. & Hajnal, Alen & Houser, Dorian & Kuczaj II, Stan A., 2016. "Fractal scaling in bottlenose dolphin (Tursiops truncatus) echolocation: A case study," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 443(C), pages 221-230.
    2. Kuo, Hsiao-I. & Chen, Chi-Chung & McAleer, Michael, 2012. "Estimating the impact of whaling on global whale-watching," Tourism Management, Elsevier, vol. 33(6), pages 1321-1328.
    3. Giglio, Vinicius J. & Luiz, Osmar J. & Schiavetti, Alexandre, 2015. "Marine life preferences and perceptions among recreational divers in Brazilian coral reefs," Tourism Management, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 49-57.
    4. Weaver, David B., 2012. "Psychographic insights from a South Carolina protected area," Tourism Management, Elsevier, vol. 33(2), pages 371-379.
    5. Wakamatsu, Mihoko & Shin, Kong Joo & Wilson, Clevo & Managi, Shunsuke, 2018. "Exploring a Gap between Australia and Japan in the Economic Valuation of Whale Conservation," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 146(C), pages 397-407.
    6. Edwards, Eric C. & Go, Dong-Hun & Oladi, Reza, 2020. "Predator–prey dynamics in general equilibrium and the role of trade," Resource and Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 61(C).
    7. Bradley Tatar, 2023. "Advocacy, Ecotourism, and Biopolitics of Whale Conservation in Ecuador," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(15), pages 1-15, July.
    8. Smith, K.R. & Scarpaci, C. & Scarr, M.J. & Otway, N.M., 2014. "Scuba diving tourism with critically endangered grey nurse sharks (Carcharias taurus) off eastern Australia: Tourist demographics, shark behaviour and diver compliance," Tourism Management, Elsevier, vol. 45(C), pages 211-225.
    9. Leask, Anna, 2016. "Visitor attraction management: A critical review of research 2009–2014," Tourism Management, Elsevier, vol. 57(C), pages 334-361.
    10. S. R. Kahane-Rapport & M. F. Czapanskiy & J. A. Fahlbusch & A. S. Friedlaender & J. Calambokidis & E. L. Hazen & J. A. Goldbogen & M. S. Savoca, 2022. "Field measurements reveal exposure risk to microplastic ingestion by filter-feeding megafauna," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 13(1), pages 1-11, December.
    11. Jeremy Buultjens & Iraj Ratnayake & Athula Gnanapala & Alexandru Mircea Nedelea, 2017. "Whale watching Tourism in Sri Lanka: Visitor Satisfaction and Behavioural Characteristics," Revista de turism - studii si cercetari in turism / Journal of tourism - studies and research in tourism, "Stefan cel Mare" University of Suceava, Romania, Faculty of Economics and Public Administration - Economy, Business Administration and Tourism Department., vol. 24(24), pages 1-8, December.
    12. Mustika, Putu Liza Kusuma & Birtles, Alastair & Welters, Riccardo & Marsh, Helene, 2012. "The economic influence of community-based dolphin watching on a local economy in a developing country: Implications for conservation," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 79(C), pages 11-20.
    13. Barrett, Luke T. & Theuerkauf, Seth J. & Rose, Julie M. & Alleway, Heidi K. & Bricker, Suzanne B. & Parker, Matt & Petrolia, Daniel R. & Jones, Robert C., 2022. "Sustainable growth of non-fed aquaculture can generate valuable ecosystem benefits," Ecosystem Services, Elsevier, vol. 53(C).
    14. Bi, Zhimin & Liu, Shutang & Ouyang, Miao, 2022. "Three-dimensional pattern dynamics of a fractional predator-prey model with cross-diffusion and herd behavior," Applied Mathematics and Computation, Elsevier, vol. 421(C).
    15. José M Landeira & Bruno Ferron & Michel Lunven & Pascal Morin & Louis Marié & Marc Sourisseau, 2014. "Biophysical Interactions Control the Size and Abundance of Large Phytoplankton Chains at the Ushant Tidal Front," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 9(2), pages 1-14, February.
    16. Farr, Marina & Stoeckl, Natalie & Alam Beg, Rabiul, 2014. "The non-consumptive (tourism) ‘value’ of marine species in the Northern section of the Great Barrier Reef," Marine Policy, Elsevier, vol. 43(C), pages 89-103.
    17. Melville Saayman & Andrea Saayman, 2014. "How Deep are Scuba Divers' Pockets?," Tourism Economics, , vol. 20(4), pages 813-829, August.
    18. Mallard, Graham, 2019. "Regulating whale watching: A common agency analysis," Annals of Tourism Research, Elsevier, vol. 76(C), pages 191-199.
    19. Ziegler, Jackie & Dearden, Philip & Rollins, Rick, 2012. "But are tourists satisfied? Importance-performance analysis of the whale shark tourism industry on Isla Holbox, Mexico," Tourism Management, Elsevier, vol. 33(3), pages 692-701.
    20. Cong, Li & Wu, Bihu & Morrison, Alastair M. & Shu, Hua & Wang, Mu, 2014. "Analysis of wildlife tourism experiences with endangered species: An exploratory study of encounters with giant pandas in Chengdu, China," Tourism Management, Elsevier, vol. 40(C), pages 300-310.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0127345. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: plosone (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.