the negative impacts of whale-watching观鲸的负面影响.pdfVIP

Hindawi Publishing Corporation Journal of Marine Biology Volume 2012, Article ID 807294, 9 pages doi:10.1155/2012/807294 Review Article The Negative Impacts of Whale-Watching E. C. M. Parsons1, 2 1 Department of Environmental Science and Policy, George Mason University, Fairfax, VA 22030, USA 2 University Marine Biological Station Millport, Great Cumbrae, Scotland KA28 0EG, UK Correspondence should be addressed to E. C. M. Parsons, ecm-parsons@ Received 16 February 2012; Accepted 23 May 2012 Academic Editor: Lori Marino Copyright © 2012 E. C. M. Parsons. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. 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