688 S. Debata
TABLE 3 Number of tourists who visited the five caves at Gupteswar cave tourism and pilgrim site (Fig. 1) in each survey day during September 2016–August 2017. Values in parentheses are the number of tourist groups. The monthly totals are presented in Fig. 2b.
Months
Sep. 2016 Oct. 2016 Nov. 2016 Dec. 2016 Jan. 2017 Feb. 2017 Mar. 2017 Apr. 2017 May 2017 June 2017 July 2017 Aug. 2017 Total
Monthly mean ± SD
Gupteswar 181 (20)
157 (18) 154 (14) 193 (18) 217 (20) 235 (22) 524 (30) 298 (25) 420 (31) 216 (21) 773 (30) 288 (25)
3,656 (274) 304.7 ± 184.3
Swargadwara 175 (19)
157 (18) 154 (14) 188 (17) 209 (18) 215 (20) 440 (27) 291 (24) 414 (30) 216 (21) 504 (25) 283 (24)
3,246 (257) 270.5 ± 119.3
TABLE 4 Demographic characteristics of the local people (n = 76) and tourists (n = 366) interviewed to assess their knowledge and attitude towards bats at Gupteswar cave tourism and pilgrim site, eastern India, during September 2016–August 2017.
Variables
Gender Male
Female
Age (years) 18–29 30–39 40–49 50–59 60+
Government employee Entrepreneur
Highest education level Illiterate Primary
Secondary
Intermediate Graduate
Post-graduate
Local people, %(n)
93.4 (71) 6.6 (5)
31.6 (24) 34.2 (26) 14.5 (11) 11.8 (9) 7.9 (6)
Occupation Non-timber forest product collector 35.5 (27) Farmer
55.3 (42) 9.2 (7)
75.0 (57) 21.0 (16) 2.7 (2) 1.3 (1)
Tourists, % (n)
84.4 (309) 15.6 (57)
30.9 (113) 35.2 (129) 26.0 (95) 7.9 (29)
20.2 (74) 42.4 (155) 37.4 (137)
1.9 (7)
10.6 (39) 18.6 (68) 29.8 (109) 26.8 (98) 12.3 (45)
caves are a threat to bats, and 80% of respondents (78%of tourists and 89% of local people) claimed they never teased or harmed bats. Regarding the conservation of bats at Gupteswar, all the local people but only 32% of the tourists agreed that bats and their roosting sites should be protected and their attitude was mostly aesthetic (55%) followed by moralistic (24%) and eco-scientific (21%). However, 68%of the tourists had a negative attitude towards the conservation of bats in caves because of the guano and the smell.
Parabhadi 1 175 (18)
152 (17) 154 (15) 185 (17) 201 (17) 207 (18) 391 (26) 291 (24) 417 (31) 216 (21) 550 (26) 257 (22)
3,196 (252) 266.3 ± 124.5
Discussion
Cave tourism is becoming increasingly popular as people are motivated to visit caves for their inherent natural landscape features (Okonkwo et al., 2017). The limestone Gupteswar caves lie within natural forest and, being associated with sacred values and accessible by road, attract tourists through- out the year. The assemblage of bats in caves is governed by two main factors; surface level disturbance, including an- thropogenic activities and availability of forest, and the com- plexity of the caves, including availability of roosting sites, structural heterogeneity and number of entrances (Phelps et al., 2016). Gupteswar caves support at least eight species of bats, comprising 32%ofthe 25 species known in Odisha state (Debata et al., 2016b). Cave dwelling bats are often hunted for their meat and
for medicinal uses (da Costa Rego et al., 2015; Tanalgo et al., 2016), but bats inhabiting sacred caves may benefit from local customary regulations and taboos (Metcalfe et al., 2010; Golden & Comaroff, 2015; Furey & Racey, 2016; Fernandez-Llamazares et al., 2018). Although bats roosting in the Gupteswar caves are not harmed, because of sacred beliefs associated with the caves, unregulated tourism activities inside the caves are a potential threat to the bats. As part of the development of any cave for tourism, structural modification and introduction of artificial light- ing is a common intervention (Furey & Racey, 2016), in- cluding at Gupteswar. Tourists visit the Gupteswar caves throughout the year, and spend more time in Gupteswar and Swargadwara, which are only artificially illuminated. Larger tourist groups spent more time inside the caves and explored more areas within the caves, increasing the likelihood of approaching close to areas with roosting sites and maternity colonies. Anthropogenic disturbance from artificial illumination, noise and human activities increase alertness in bats, leading to increases in flight activity,
Oryx, 2021, 55(5), 684–691 © The Author(s), 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Fauna & Flora International doi:10.1017/S003060531900098X
Parabhadi 2 171 (18)
143 (16) 154 (14) 181 (16) 183 (15) 189 (16) 215 (14) 267 (23) 382 (28) 203 (19) 400 (23) 257 (22)
2,745 (224) 228.8 ± 84.3
Dhabaleswar 175 (18)
135 (15) 149 (13) 182 (16) 198 (16) 190 (17) 409 (26) 269 (25) 371 (26) 216 (20) 542 (27) 263 (22)
3,099 (241) 258.3 ± 122.9
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