860 D. Barcelos et al.
FIG. 4 Comparison of daily activity patterns, calculated using kernel density estimates, for ocelots (top row) and rock cavies (bottom row) before and after tourism was allowed in Cavernas do Peruaçu National Park (Table 2). Asterisks indicate significance levels resulting from Watson’s two-sample test: *P,0.05, **P,0.01, ***P,0.001.
Despite the negative response of rock cavies to visitors,
four of the six target species showed increased probabilities of using a tourist trail after the Park was opened to tourists. Given that the implementation of tourism in the study area has followed high standards and visitors do not leave food or litter behind, we did not expect an increase in the use of tourist trails by any of the target species, particularly peccaries and deer, as Neotropical ungulates are often sensitive to human presence and affected by even low-intensity tourism (Blake et al., 2017; Silva et al., 2018). In addition, peccary occupancy is known to be influenced negatively by anthropogenic pressure in the study area (Ferreira, 2018). However, it is not uncommon for ungulates to show habituation to tourists (Stankowich, 2008). It is possible that visitation could have created a zone in which the risk of poaching is lower, benefitting some species. Given that some level of poaching is known to occur in the Park (D. Barcelos & G.B. Ferreira, pers. obs., 2006, 2012, 2014, 2015), the unintentional patrolling of guides and visitors could have caused a reduction in this illegal activity in tourist areas. Although four species showed increased use of tourist
trails after the intensification of tourism, this occurred outside the core visitation hours (9.00–17.00) for ocelots, peccaries and coatis. This suggests a nuanced response to visitors in which these species increased their use of tourist trails to benefit from changes caused by tourism (e.g. refuge from predators or poachers) while still limiting their direct interactions with people. Shifts towards more nocturnal activity in tourist areas have been reported elsewhere (Marchand et al., 2014; Coppes et al., 2017) and we detected a similar shift in the activity patterns of ocelots in this study. We found unusually high diurnal activity for ocelots, not reported for the species elsewhere (Maffei et al., 2005;Di Bitetti et al., 2006; Kolowski & Alonso, 2010), which shifted
to nocturnal activity on tourist trails after visitors were allowed into the Park.
Implications for the management of tourism activity
Our results suggest that tourismmanagement strategies such as those adopted at Cavernas do Peruaçu National Park (e.g. zoning, a dedicated trail system, a daily cap of visitors and a requirement for certified tour guides) may limit wildlife displacement from tourist areas. However, we noticed some responses to tourism that were particularly strong and po- tentially detrimental to the nationally threatened rock cavy. Considering that even quiet, non-consumptive tourism can cause negative impacts on species (Reed & Merenlender, 2008) and that most mammals are likely to respond to people to some degree (Larson et al., 2016;Gaynoretal., 2018), zero-impact tourism activity may be unachievable and should not be a target of tourism management pro- grammes inprotected
areas.Therefore, if some level of impact is likely to occur, a realistic management strategy should ad- dress two distinct features of such impact: spatial distribution and intensity. Zoning is essential to keep negative impacts fromtourism
as localized as possible and to avoid compromising the con- servation objectives of protected areas (Leung et al., 2018). Limiting the tourist area ensures that eventual negative im- pacts will be limited only to a proportion of the animal pop- ulations protected in the region. Additionally, a sensible cap in the daily number of tourists (as is the current practice in our study area) is likely to limit the intensity of these impacts. The number of visitors is known to modulate the impacts of tourism on local biodiversity (Das & Chatterjee, 2015) and wildlife avoidance of tourist areas has been reported in highly visited Brazilian national parks (Cunha, 2010; Silva et al.,
Oryx, 2022, 56(6), 854–863 © Crown Copyright, 2022. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Fauna & Flora International doi:10.1017/S0030605321001472
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