Interview with Darryl Jones

 

Interview between WTA and Associate-Professor Darryl Jones of Griffith University

Darryl will be a keynote speaker on the second day of the national workshop “Using Wildlife for Tourism: Opportunity, Threats, Responsibilities”

He has conducted much research on birds, including brush turkeys in rainforest, cockatoos in crops, and magpies and other birds in suburban habitats. He as also led a large team of students and research assistants  on the interaction between humans and wildlife, been involved in birdwatching aspects of the Sustainable Tourism CRC, writes a regular article for the magazine “Wildlife Australia” and is deputy director of the Environmental Futures Centre at Griffith University.

Q. Hello Darryl. You will have a lot to offer this workshop, having studied birds in many different habitats, and with your students and colleagues investigated a number of aspects of human-wildlife interaction, both pleasurable and otherwise, and also the pursuit of birdwatching tourism in Australia and have been active also in disseminating information to others outside the scientific community. How did you develop an interest in the interactions between humans and wild animals, including birds?

A. Initially I was taught that a good ecologist must avoid all human influences and so I worked as far from people as possible. But as soon as I started research urban species, the presence of people became not only unavoidable but essential to the topic. I know realise that human values and perceptions influence all of our activities and interests, including the desire to conserve. We need to understand the motivations of people as much as we try to discern what the wildlife is up to.

Q. Tourists sometimes appear to feed animals to bring them closer, either for a better look at them or for photos.  Apart from this, do you think tourists feed wildlife for similar reasons that residents feed the birds in the back yard?

A. This is a major issue and I think that they need to be dealt with in different ways. It is likely that the desire to get close is much the same in natural and suburban settings but the consequences and implications are quite different. At home, we have the privilege of having wild animals visit us so the responsibility is to minimise our impact (correct foods, not too much, ensure no predators are near etc.). In the wild, however, we are the visitors and the responsibility is on reducing our impact to as small as possible. This means feeding is unlikely to ever be appropriate.

Q. I think most would agree that allowing the public to feed wildlife in national parks and other such natural areas is not appropriate, and WTA’s own policy is certainly against that.  What about the common practice of farmstays and country Bed-and-Breakasts where the hosts put food out each morning for parrots and other birds? Or the possibly even more common practice of feeding seagulls at beaches and ducks in public gardens?

A: The key question in all situations were we are manipulating wild animals for our own benefit is: does this benefit or harm them? Obviously it is nice to see animals up close but we can often cause highly atypical situations that artificially increase competition and aggression among the animals trying to get to the food. In the case of the BnBs I would give the same suggestions as we have for people at home: not too much; not too often and not to strange. As for gulls and ducks, there is nothing anyone will be able to do but responsible people should be aware of the all-to obvious health threats involved in eating chips and bread.

Q. Do you think that feeding birds and other wildlife can encourage people to feel more positive about animals and thus be more interested in their conservation? And if so, how important do you think this connection is to general public support for conservation?

A. This is a very big and important question and a feature of our on-going research. We are currently investigating the importance of feeding as a means of connecting people with nature, and that seems to be the case. The further step of equating connecting via feeding and interest in conservation remains to be examined.

Q. We are sometimes told ‘a fed bird’s a dead bird’ and that feeding wildlife is always wrong, but I understand some of yours and your students’ research has suggested this is not always the case. Could you elaborate?

A. It is forever of interest to me that Australia is the only country in the world were wild bird feeding is regarded so negatively! Of course there are some serious issues to be addressed such as the spread of disease and the possibility of birds becoming dependant on  human foods but our research shows that these are extremely rare or unlikely; indeed, an international review we completed recently found no evidence for birds becoming dependent anywhere in the world. My take on this is that the interaction between people and wildlife during feeding is extremely important for the people involved and will never stop occurring. Instead, we need to develop harm minimisation guidelines and encourage best practice feeding.

Q. There are some who say we should not allow any feeding of any wildlife anywhere because this is easier to enforce and easier for people to understand. What are your thoughts on the complexities of educating both locals and visitors, including those whose grasp of English may be poor,  on where it is definitely not appropriate and under what circumstances it may be allowable?

A. As I have said before, just under half of Australian households feed wildlife to some extent at home so enforcing a feeding ban would be simply impossible. And I would contend, unwise anyway. However, feeding wildlife in natural areas IS different and should never be a normal practice in Australia, unless there are clear and obvious conservation benefits for the animals.

Q. That is certainly in line with WTA policy. On now to the importance of birdwatching as a tourism activity in Australia. You listed many of Australia’s attractions to international birdwatchers in a 2001 report for the Cooperative Research Centre for Sustainable Tourism that Australia, and yet you also said that  “[a]lthough the economic, recreational and social significance of birdwatching has been recognised elsewhere, virtually nothing is known about this form of recreation or its importance within tourism in Australia.” Do you think this has changed over the past decade?

A. There has been considerable research into the importance of birdwatching in Australia over the past decade and we have learned a lot about specific sectors and locations. However, the sheer diversity of the industry in this country will require a lot more attention before we can say we really understand the situation.

Q. You have also looked into the effects of birdwatching on the birds.  What would you be advising birdwatching tour guides or ecolodge and farm-stay managers to ensure minimal disturbance of birds and habitats?

A. All good wildlife tourism operators are aware of what they should and shouldn’t do, and it all comes down to the operationalisation of ‘sustainability’: if i keep doing this, would I still be able to do this in ten years time.

 

Thanks Darryl, and we are very much looking forward to your presentation and participation in our workshop in May

 

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