Managing Harbour Seal Watching in Rural Areas of Iceland

Marine mammal watching is often economically important to stakeholders and society, not the least in rural areas. However, negative effects on wildlife due to tourism have frequently been described in the literature resulting... [ view full abstract ]

Marine mammal watching is often economically important to stakeholders and society, not the least in rural areas. However, negative effects on wildlife due to tourism have frequently been described in the literature resulting in a need to balance the use and protection of the important resource that marine mammals are. In this presentation, results from two case studies on effects of tourist disturbance on harbour seal behaviour in Iceland will be addressed. In the first study, effects on seal behaviour due to land-based seal watching is presented. The results showed that during periods when tourists visits to the seal watching site peaked, seals were more vigilant (i.e. alert) compared to other periods of the summer. The seals were also found to change their distribution to skerries further away from land when many tourists were present in the area. Nevertheless, tourists behaving in a calmer way had less effect on the seals. Further, no flushing (i.e. rushing into the water as a response to disturbance) was observed during the time of study, indicating that in general the disturbance was rather low. This could partly be attributed to the topography of the seal watching site. Since the seals are hauling out on skerries outside of the shore, there is a natural barrier preventing tourists to come too close to the seal colony. In the second case study, the effect of boat-based seal watching on harbour seals was investigated. The results from this study showed that the proportion of seals that were either vigilant or flushed into the water increased with decreased distance between the boat and the seal colony. However, a negative correlation was found between seal vigilance and time that the boat stopped in proximity of the seal colony. In the light of the results obtained from the case studies, possibilities of reducing negative impacts and the necessity of interdisciplinary management approaches will be discussed.