How tourists can help to protect animals

the captain of The boat is under pressure. His guests have paid for a special experience: Swimming with dolphins. He departs from the Places where the marine mammals commonly found. The tourists have no idea that there are quiet zones.

Hardly the tour provider has sighted the dolphins, jump the guests into the water, armed with underwater cameras. The animals flee and try to protect their young. Some boat operators do literally hunt on the popular photo motifs and cut them out of the way. Or So many tours run in the Red sea, to the example of Hurghada. You use the mass tourism.

Angela Ziltener, behavior researcher at the University of Zurich, has been working for ten years in Egypt, in Hurghada, El Gouna. The biologist is investigating the dolphins, and for their protection. In Workshops, they tried to convince the providers of these "Swim with dolphins"tours that they sell with their methods, the dolphins and due to the ongoing Stress ultimately kill. The insight was moderate. Ziltener has since been increased to raise awareness among the tourists.

you May follow as a Tourist, so the rare animals in remote regions of the world? Humpback whales in Australia, sea turtles in Oman, the mountain gorillas in Rwanda? The answer is Yes: Because of this unique nature experiences can benefit endangered species even.

Important source of income for Locals

first, people protect what they know and have learned to love. The observation of endangered animals sensitized to pig directly in the Wilderness even stronger for their fragile existence than a visit to the Zoo the Siberian Tiger, or a Film about the South American water. Anyone who has experienced this once, also at home for the protection of species. Secondly, a carefully-operated animal tourism, the endangered species directly on-site in a value – morally and financially.

An example of the mountain gorillas in the Virunga volcanoes in the border area of Rwanda, Uganda and Congo-Kinshasa. Almost three-quarters of these mountain gorillas are accustomed to people. You get one hour a day of visit of tourists. So they are a lucrative source of income for the Locals. Rangers currently paid for it, the due tourist of the heart, were formerly part of poachers. Now the tourists bring with them and the surrounding villages sustained more than previously, the macabre trophies of a dead gorilla: heads, hands, feet.

What does that mean for the dolphins in Egypt, Red sea, a destination for many people in Switzerland? Tourists who want to observe marine mammals in the wild, you must choose the provider carefully. There are tours, in which guests observe the dolphins from the boat. Who wants to swim with the animals that will find projects with the protection zones for the marine mammals, where visitors are not legally allowed to. If a Dolphin approaches a strange, wriggling, two-legged, he does it because he wants it. An experience for both sides.

Angela Ziltener is speaking on Sunday, 3. November, 14 at about Dolphin research and protection in the Audimax of ETH Zurich at Rämistrasse 101. www.treffpunkt.ethz.ch

Created: 30.10.2019, 18:38 PM