Browsing by Subject "manatee"

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    Close Encounters with Wild Animals: Evaluating a New Form of Wildlife Tourism
    (2007-12-07T18:18:19Z) Harvey, Sarah
    Over the last few decades, many tourists have become increasingly interested in close interaction with wild animals: referred to as human-wild animal interaction (HWAI) within this paper. The array of HWAI activities includes: very close approach, feeding, touching, and swimming in the company of wild animals. The focus of my Master’s Project is on HWAI tourism involving dolphins and manatees in the United States. As “swim with” tourism grows in popularity, a thorough examination of HWAI tourism is necessary to assess the potential negative impacts of such activities on the target species. This paper is an examination of why interaction with wild dolphins and manatees has become so popular, what effects the interactions could have on the target species, and what policy alternatives could best protect the species. A variety of factors can motivate people to seek out and value interaction with wild animals, including certain physical and behavioral characteristics, entertainment and film, and species status. Legislation protects dolphins and manatees against harassment, but few studies have examined the direct effects of HWAI on the target species. It is likely that HWAI results in various sub-lethal effects, such as modifications to activity and energy budgets, but we have little direct information regarding the consequences of such behavioral changes. This makes management of the HWAI tourism industry difficult, because enforcing agencies must first demonstrate how a particular action harms a species in order to prosecute. I recommend a suite of policy alternatives that could help to protect target species based on existing knowledge, including increased educational efforts and changes to the current permitting process and regulatory regime. I conclude by identifying areas where more monitoring and research are necessary.
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    Evaluation of Thermal Characteristics of Secondary Warm-Water Sites for the Florida Manatee
    (2010-04-30T19:05:50Z) Loomis, Caroline Pitt
    While the threat of collisions with recreational watercraft continues to be a serious concern for the Florida manatee population, a growing threat in the future is likely to be the loss of available winter habitat. Manatees are at risk of illness or death in water temperatures less than 20°C. To meet their thermoregulatory needs, manatees rely on sources of warm-water habitat. Currently the majority of the population is utilizing thermal discharges at coastal power plants to stay warm during winter cold periods; however, most of these power plants are expected to close down in the next t20 to 50 years. Since 1998 the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) has collected time-series temperature data at various sites used by manatees in winter. The goal of my project was to evaluate the thermal characteristics of 10 suspected warm-water sites in southern Florida to assess their potential suitability as winter habitat for manatees. Sites were assessed based on how frequently they were at temperatures considered threatening to manatee health and mortality, and on how many consecutive days they remained below these threshold temperatures. Delta-T and regression analysis were also used to compare the temperature of potential warm-water sites to that of nearby ambient sites. The results of this analysis will be used to make recommendations to the FWC about which sites might provide suitable warm-water habitat and should be further investigated with more detailed monitoring efforts in the future. This information could be used to meet the agency’s long-term goal of creating a protected network of warm-water habitat throughout the state.