Líffræðifélag Íslands
Líffræðiráðstefnan 2015
Erindi/veggspjald / Talk/poster V8
Elin Lilja Öqvist (1), Sandra Granquist (1, 2, 3), Anders Angerbjörn (1)
1. Stockholm University, Sweden 2. The Icelandic Seal Center, Iceland 3. Institute of Freshwater Fisheries, Iceland
Kynnir / Presenter: Elin Lilja Öqvist
Tengiliður / Corresponding author: Elin Lilja Öqvist (elin.lilja@live.se)
Hunting and tourism affect conservation of marine mammals and can impact fitness and distribution of populations negatively. In Iceland, many tourists attend marine mammal watching tours and during their stay they also have the opportunity to eat whale meat. Although seal meat is seldom offered to tourists, seal hunting and seal watching are largely unregulated and seal populations in Iceland are declining rapidly. In this study, tourist perception and awareness about management of marine mammals in Iceland were investigated during the summer/fall of 2015. Questionnaires were distributed to whale watching (n=600) and seal watching tourist (n=198) and were compared to a control group of tourists not participating in these activities (n=153). Preliminary results show that tourists in Iceland in general have strong biospheric values and are somewhat interested in marine mammal conservation. A majority of both whale watching tourists and the control group considers it likely that all species of whales are endangered, while there was less concern for seals. Fewer tourists in the control group (35%) agreed to the need of regulating marine mammal watching, compared to whale watching (52%) and seal watching tourists (45%). More tourists in the control group were positive to try whale meat (20%) and seal meat (18%) compared to whale watching (13%) and seal watching tourists (12%). Knowing the opinions of tourists in these matters is useful for future marine mammal management.