Can Tourism Help Save The Tiger?

Tigers are one of the most charismatic and beautiful animals on earth. They are the world’s largest cat and can live across a wide range of habitats, from mountains to coastal wetlands. Most of the world’s tigers live in India among a number of national parks and tiger reserves but their numbers are decreasing rapidly. Tiger tourism has become a hot button issue in India, with the country’s recent Supreme Court decision to end a moratorium on tourism in these reserves.

Many wildlife conservationists and respected ecotourism operators believe that tourism can help to save this iconic predator, Panthera tigris. Many conservationists believe that the presence of tourists helps keep away poachers from important habitat. Some proactive tour operators such as Wildand Adventures put some of their profits towards conservation and social programs. Sanjay Gubbi, Tiger Program Coordinator for the well-respected conservation organization Panthera has said that, “India’s wildlife tourism industry benefits communities by stimulating local economies and providing employment.” Another benefit of tiger tourism is helping to inspire travelers to support conservation efforts (though much more can be done in this area).

Ajay Dubey, a conservationist who works with Prayatna, believes tiger tourism as currently practiced in India is a threat to the big cats. Panthera’s Mr. Gubbi notes that many tourism operations practice “unethical safari practices.” In some tiger reserves, lodges have been built in key habitat and the cats are stressed by large numbers of jeeps crowding them. Mr. Dubey recently took the Indian government to court to spur improvements in how tiger tourism is managed in the country. This lawsuit has divided many people on both sides of the argument, whether the final ruling, which came out in October, will improve the situation.

One point that everyone on both sides of the argument agrees to is that these animals face a serious situation. Most estimates are that fewer than 4,000 tigers remain in the wild across Asia, with about 1,700 surviving in India. Those numbers mean a more than 90 percent drop over the past century and are why they are currently listed as endangered by the IUCN’s Red List. The main reason for this drop however, is not tourism but poaching. These cats’ skins and body parts can bring thousands of dollars on the black market.

I have spent most of the past decade working on improving how tourism benefits the efforts to protect endangered sea turtles. While these two animals and their conservation methods are very different, many of the same principles apply. For tourism to work, it must be done in a way that minimizes damage to key habitat, prevents unnecessary stress on the animals, and generates concrete benefits to both conservation programs and nearby communities.

The recent ruling by the Indian Supreme Court on Prayatna’s lawsuit has the potential to improve how tourism is managed in the country. Unfortunately, people on both sides of the argument were disappointed in the lack of strong regulations to protect tigers in the decision. Julian Matthews of Travel Operators for Tigers stated that, “Sadly there is nothing in these guidelines that gives anyone… a legal ‘road map’ as to how they (the forests) can be restored.” The primary responsibility for ending the construction of infrastructure is now in the hands of the state governments, which have been given six months to develop new tourism and conservation guidelines.

Tour operators have a strong responsibility to advocate not only for regulations that will allow their businesses to grow but also to make compromises that keep the best interests of the tigers in mind. If real changes aren’t made to both improve tourism management and reduce poaching, tourism businesses and local communities will suffer alongside these charismatic animals.

Learn more:

Travelers interested in visiting India’s tiger reserves should seek out tour operators that both minimize impacts on tigers and support conservation efforts.

Learn facts about tigers and tiger conservation tourism at SEEtheWILD.

Travel Operators for Tigers has developed a rating system for operators, lodges, and other tourism businesses.

Read about a recent visit to India’s National Parks to see tigers in WildHope Magazine and check out a tiger conservation photo essay by award-winning photographer Steve Winter.

Monterey Bay, Sea Otters, and… Rob Lowe?

Who would you rather see while kayaking - a movie star or a cuddly marine mammal? I had the opportunity to do both just a short drive from San Francisco in August of 2010.

Monterey, California is in some ways a model for how wildlife-based tourism can revive a community and benefit both people and endangered animals. In the early 1900’s, the town was a hub for the fishing industry and was home to many canneries based on the abundant catches coming in from fishermen. Fish stocks crashed in the 1950’s from overfishing, decimating the community.

In the late 1970’s, a group of marine biologists suggested building an aquarium, including a couple of members of the Packard family (as in Hewlett Packard) who provided the funding to make it happen. Right from the start, the idea was to showcase the incredibly diverse ocean habitat in Monterey Bay.

Now, the Monterey Bay Aquarium is one of the most popular in the world and a leader in ocean conservation efforts. The Monterey Bay National Marine Reserve protects ocean wildlife including sea otters, leatherback sea turtles migrating from Indonesia, and several species of whales including gray whales, humpbacks, orcas, and blue whales, the world’s largest animal.

Now due to the work of hundreds of visionaries, instead of taking from the ocean, Monterey’s economy is based on conserving, learning about, and experiencing the ocean. I came here to participate in the Blue Ocean Film Festival, a celebration of marine moviemaking that happens every two years (next one is in August, you should go!).

After watching a number of great films, I had to get out on the water. I grabbed my friend Jen and we went to rent kayaks to get out among a bunch of otters floating around the kelp forest alongside the aquarium. As we were getting outfitted with our kayaks, the cashier leaned over the counter and said, “Keep an eye out for Rob Lowe.”

“Really?” Jen and I looked at each other in surprise. “Yeah, he’s out there on a paddle board”, the guy replied.

So Jen and I hit the water and pushed our way through the thick kelp and headed toward the lumps in the water that looked like they could be otters. When we found a group swimming around, we parked our kayaks in the kelp at a respectable distance and watched as they played. A short distance away, an otter pup, tied up by mom in the kelp, watched jealously as the others looked for food. This bay is one of the best places in the world to see these threatened otters; you can even see them from land alongside the aquarium.

Then we saw a very tanned guy inching along on a paddleboard. From our distance, it certainly looked like he could be a movie star but we didn’t leave the otters to get within papparazi distance. This photo here is our best evidence.

I remain a bit skeptical that it was Mr. Lowe (though Jen swears with her life it was him). I do know that those lumps in the foreground are sea otters, the real movie stars of Monterey Bay.

Big Season at Las Tortugas

One of my favorite parts of my job running SEEtheWILD is the opportunity to bring a group of Portland, Oregon residents to participate in a volunteer vacation every spring with the leatherback sea turtles. As our group arrived to our hotel the first night, the inevitable question was asked, “How many turtles do you think we’ll see?”

As an optimist, I always want to answer that question with a big number but past experience has taught me that its better to set lower expectations. I hedged my bets and said that we should see several, knowing that so far this season, there have been a lot. A group that we organized in late March had 14 turtles their first night and even had the opportunity to see on one the beach in the morning, a rare chance to take a photograph.

I tried to contain my excitement when we got to the turtle station and I learned that there were 3 times as many nests in March of this year, compared to last year. My optimism was confirmed though shortly after we got out to beach for our 11 am patrol with the local researchers. It took all of 15 minutes to find our first leatherback, just a few hundred meters up the beach. It had already laid its eggs but our group was able to help measure the turtle and relocate her eggs to a hatchery, where they are protected until they hatch in two months.

The second turtle we saw was practically waiting for us in front of the hatchery, though another group of researchers were already working with her. Once we created the new nest, we were alerted that a third turtle that had just come up down the beach. On the way, we came across yet another turtle that had come ashore but decided not to nest. As we arrived at the third turtle, we realized she had just started to drop her eggs.

(credit: Neil Osborne)

As the researcher situated a bag to catch the eggs, I jumped in to dig out the sand to create access for her and to collect the eggs that had already fallen and put them into the bag. By the time we were done with that turtle, our four hour patrol was just about finished and we still hadn’t walked our full section of beach. As we got back to the station, we learned that another turtle had laid its eggs just in front and a couple of our group stayed behind to dig it out and move it to the hatchery.

---

Our group slept the second day as late as the boisterous howler monkeys, roosters, and rising heat allowed. Sharing the station with our group the first day was an enthusiastic group of Costa Rican students participating in an educational program of a US-based non-profit called Ecology Project International. Their energy helped to keep the normally quiet and laid back atmosphere of the research station lively with games and activities.

After lunch, the project biologist, Stamie Sklirou, gave our group an educational presentation about leatherbacks and other sea turtles of Costa Rica. She saved the best for last as she brought us over to a desk with a sheet draped over the top. As she lifted the sheet, we saw huddled in a dark corner of a sand-covered box the season’s first leatherback hatchling.

This tiny turtle had been found on the beach this morning and was being kept safe until nightfall, when it has a much better chance of surviving the gauntlet of crabs, birds, fish, and other animals that can easily swallow a hatchling in the bright daylight. This hatchling had the good fortune of being the one that the new volunteers were using to learn how to measure and collect information, so it was handled more than its brothers and sisters who made it safely to the water last night.

With the season off to a good start, though, it was just the first of thousands that will enter the warm water of the Caribbean, braving a gauntlet of fish, birds, plastic, and fishing gear.

--- 

Our final night of turtle patrols started slowly. With the moon providing some light on the beach, we made a full pass of our section without seeing any turtles. About halfway through the shift, though, we saw the now familiar trail of dark sand heading up the beach that alerts us of a turtle’s presence.

I convinced the patrol leader to let me catch the eggs and somewhat patiently waited as she dug out the nest. Watching her back flippers alternate digging out the sand, I realized that her right flipper was shorter than the left. Once the turtle was done digging, I got the bag in place under the cloaca (where the eggs drop from). She kept her damaged flipper inside the hole, resting it on top of my hand while I held the bag.

It wasn’t until the leatherback was done laying and started to cover the nest that I realized just how damaged her flipper was. She tried to push down on the nest and would have crushed her eggs had my hand not been holding her back. The heavy scar tissue on the end of her flipper was very different from the soft outer edge of most leatherback back flippers. Normally the eggs would have been lower in the nest but the nest was not as wide as normal due to the shorter flipper, hence the risk of breaking the eggs.

After we pulled the eggs out of the nest to take to the hatchery, we inspected her for other damage and that’s when realized what a tough turtle this was. More than half of her front right flipper was missing, likely the result of a shark bite. Despite these challenged, this inspiring turtle made it back to the nesting beach and to lay an above average 99 eggs.

Its turtles like this one that give me optimism for the future of this species. She managed to migrate thousands of miles to reproduce, avoiding sharks, fishing gear, and other hazards. Hopefully some of her hatchlings will inherit that strength and make it back to this beach in a couple of decades.

Learn more about Costa Rica ecotourism here.

Seeing Tigers in India

(This is an excerpted guest post from Kurt Kutay, President of Wildland Adventures, a SEEtheWILD partner. See the full post here.)

Leaving the unorganized chaos of Delhi behind we sought the peace and quiet of the jungle, and the anticipation of spending 6 days on 8 safari game drives in search of the Bengal tiger. It takes 5 hours drive from the Jabalpur airport to get to Kanha National Park and our accommodations at the Kanha Jungle Lodge, but here the sounds are squawking parrots, barking deer, and monkeys rattling the tree branches . Every morning at 6:15 AM we pass through the gates, returning by 10:30 after a bush breakfast in the field, then back into the park at 2:45 until we must exit by 5:45 dusk.

We try not to be too "tiger centric" but the anticipation of driving through carnivore territory, hearing the alarm calls of monkey and deer, knowing that Bengal tigers and leopards are lurking in the tall grass and bamboo thickets watching us is a little unnerving but completely mesmerizing. We are with expert driver naturalist guides, joined by a local assistant guide from the community to help track and spot the tiger, and every time we encounter another jeep they all confer in Hindi as to who saw what where and when. We watch for pug marks (tiger tracks) and confer with forest guards walking in the park and occasional mahouts riding elephant back in search of the big cats.

And then it happens…sometimes by sitting in wait knowing a cat is there and hoping it will emerge and then other times it just appears! The whole experience is tracking skill and experienced guesses of the driver guides and their assistants, and much of it is also plain luck. The Aussies who were traveling along our schedule for a few days had the most upbeat and positive attitude and they had numerous sightings.After our days in the jungle the comments were: "Awesome!" This is what I came to see!" "When I got back to my room I couldn't sit down!"

Paired off in groups of 3-4 persons per jeep the first vehicle to have a spotting was with Vinod's—the very same local community guide that Wildland and our previous travels sponsored to participate in a local guide training program so that members of the local villages could participate more in tiger tourism, earn income from tiger conservation, and be ambassadors in their community to help protect tigers. It was great to meet Vinod personally and to see that he is now a full time hired guide at the Kanha Jungle Lodge—ask for him if you go!

Read the full itinerary for Wildland's Tigers and Travels in India here.

An Adventure in Nicaragua

(Note: This is a guest post from Christina Tunnah of World Nomads, who is supporting our partners in Nicaragua with funding through their Footprints Program. Read the full blog entry here.)

The final part of the trip was San Juan del Sur on the Pacific coast, a launching off point for coast further south towards Costa Rica to see the Paso Pacifico and SEE Turtles project that World Nomads is supporting with your micro-donations. It is a real treat to see first-hand the needs and communities that Footprint Network funding helps.

This specific project centers on Nicaragua's Pacific slope,

a globally important nesting ground for four species of endangered sea turtle (Leatherback, Hawskbill, Green, and Olive Ridley) critically threatened by illegal egg poaching and destructive fishing practices (and unbridled tourism) that have depleted these populations to the edge of extinction. 


Footprints funding will help Paso Pacifico in employing locals to patrol nesting beaches (some of whom are former egg poachers), improving egg hatcheries managed by the women of El Ostional, and supporting the development of local ecotourism in 6 small rural villages along this stretch of coast.

Liza, who overseas the Paso Pacifico’s turtle conservation project, and Salvador, a Community Coordinator, met me in San Juan and we drove over 25 kilometres of jungle and dirt roads through stunning country to El Ostional and the several beaches where the project is focused. Our stop in La Flor coincided with a community picnic where the local schoolchildren were going to release hatchling turtles not even six hours old, into the water.

Like puppies with disproportionately sized paws, these little guys had adorably large flippers that begged the question "How could you not want to protect them?". In El Ostional I met the women who manage the hatchery and went by boat to see the nesting beaches along many kilometers of coastline that just eight rangers have the herculean task of protecting. I also passed through Hermosa Surf Camp where I spoke with a ranger about his challenges against poachers and tourists. The camp owner, a former mayor of the local town after years of Liza building a rapport, fully supports the conservation efforts and pays a ranger's salary and educates staff and surfers on the fragility of that beach's ecosystem.