New report shows relationship between ecotourism and wildlife

More and more tourists are willing to vacation in far-flung places around the places where they can use their money to make a positive impact on local people and local wildlife. However, researchers published a report in Trends in Ecology & Evolution on October 9th showed that the interactions between wild animals and friendly ecotourists eager to snap their pictures may unintentionally put animals at greater risk of being eaten.
It is obvious that ecotourism business is booming these years. "Recent data showed that protected areas around the globe receive 8 billion visitors per year; that's like each human on Earth visited a protected area once a year, and then some!" said Daniel Blumstein of the University of California, Los Angeles. "This massive amount of nature-based and ecotourism can be added to the long list of drivers of human-induced rapid environmental change."
The report shows the viewpoint that when animals interact with humans in benign ways, they may lower their guard. As they get used to staying with humans in comfortable environment, they may become bolder in other situations. It is difficult for them to recognize real predators.
Ecotourism is actually similar to domestication or urbanization. In all three cases, regular interactions between people and animals may lead to habituation. This is another kind of taming. A process that results from evolutionary changes but also from regular interactions with humans happens: domesticated silver foxes become more docile and less fearful. Domesticated fish are less responsive to simulated predatory attacks. Fox squirrels and birds that live in urbanized areas are bolder. It takes more to make them flee.
Besides, the presence of humans can also scare off natural predators, which creates a relatively safe environment for the smaller animals which could have become bolder. When humans are around, for example, vervet monkeys have fewer run-ins with predatory leopards.
The researchers hope more research on the interactions of humans with wildlife can be stimulated by this research. It will help people understand how different species and species in different situations respond to human visitation and under what conditions human act may put these species in danger situation.
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