Executive Summary
What the report is about
Some landholders in Australia are seeking alternatives to traditional farming. One option is to develop wildlife tourism enterprises. The Australian continent has the highest rate of mammal extinctions of any continent in the world. Reintroduction programs are often used to help redress serious declines across species’ former ranges. Some landholders with a personal interest in wildlife have developed or are considering developing tourism enterprises based on reintroductions of threatened native mammals, for economic and conservation reasons.

This publication gives recommendations on how such enterprises can address problems and how government bodies can help facilitate the development of the enterprises. The publication analyses case studies and legislation from Australia and South Africa, published literature from around the world, and intensive field research at two main case study sites in Australia and China.

Who is the report targeted at?
The information will target landholders who are interested in the tourism and breeding components and opportunities of the Sustainable Wildlife Enterprise Trials being jointly funded by RIRDC and the National Land-care Program.

Aims
This study aims to provide recommendations on how tourism enterprises based on reintroduced threatened native mammals can successfully address problems, reintroduce mammals, minimise negative impacts of tourists on wildlife and satisfy tourists. The study also aims to provide recommendations on how government bodies can facilitate the development of tourism enterprises based on reintroductions.

Methods used
The study investigated case studies and legislation from Australia and South Africa, published literature from around the world, and intensive field research at two main case study sites (the Australian Native Flora and Fauna Sanctuary at Western Plain Zoo, Dubbo, and Changqing National Natural Reserve, Shaanxi Province, China).

The types of tourism enterprises based on reintroductions of threatened native mammals currently operating in Australia include:

• reserves with guided walks and no accommodation
• reserves with accommodation.

The types of tourism enterprises based on reintroductions operating in South Africa include:

• hunting reserves
• hunting and wildlife-viewing reserves
• wildlife-viewing reserves
• wildlife conservancies.

Results/Key findings
The problems that these enterprises have to face include:

• mortality of reintroduced mammals
• difficulties conducting research and monitoring
• difficulties obtaining funding and making money from tourism
• costs of rates and setting up reserves
• accessing threatened species
• competition
• marketing of wildlife products
• insufficient staff time
• difficulties satisfying tourists
• lack of support
• difficulties attracting a variety of cultural groups
• difficulties controlling tourists
• speeding
• high vehicle densities
• impacts of tourists on wildlife
• uncertainty due to disasters
• difficulties with staff
• the influence of AIDs
• difficulties with marketing
• lack of skills
• problems with focussing on large species
• difficulties obtaining licences
• drought
• inbreeding
• delinquent elephants
• escaping animals
• diseases
• exotic weeds
• maintaining populations of species below carrying capacity
• issues with small reserves.

Recommendations
The enterprises may be able to deal with problems by:

• using volunteers to assist with monitoring
• avoiding reserves with low surface area to circumference
• considering any land claims on their property before developing
• developing high end, luxury accommodation in Australia
• moving into wildlife meat production in South Africa
• managing tourist expectations and never promising anything that might not be deliverable
• educating tourists about reasons behind any rules
• only allowing tourists to view wildlife on guided tours
• building speed humps and underpasses on roads
• charging higher entrance fees for international visitors or charging higher fees for open drive permits to decrease traffic
• employing staff or consultants to assist with tourism issues such as marketing
• employing staff or consultants with knowledge of wildlife management
• regularly reintroducing new animals to help with inbreeding
• habituating animals before release by holding in small enclosures
• dropping fences between adjacent wildlife reserves.

Government bodies in Australia may be able to facilitate the development of tourism enterprises based on reintroductions by:

• providing information on how to monitor wildlife and vegetation effectively
• introducing conservation covenants for landholders who wish to conserve native wildlife, which allow them to obtain tax concessions or rate rebates
• making endangered species available free of charge or heavily subsidised
• providing free wildlife management advice
• running wildlife auctions
• educating staff on the benefits of tourism to conservation and the positive contribution of privately-run organisations to conservation
• aggressively marketing wildlife viewing of endangered species
• changing licensing systems in some States so a single licence allows enterprises to keep,  release, exhibit and trade mammals, and another licence allows them to import and export wildlife
• developing stronger statutory instructions to tell administrators how to assess licence applications
• introducing a new permit in South Australia that covers the specific case of landholders who wish to keep animals in a free-ranging environment.
• changing regulations in New South Wales to allow trading of wildlife
• changing regulations in New South Wales and Queensland to allow ownership of native fauna and progeny of native fauna
• clearly defining property rights in Victoria, South Australia, Tasmania and the ACT
• changing regulations in the ACT so if an animal escapes from custody the person who holds the animal can retrieve it
• introducing computerised licensing systems and better, more user friendly information.

Government bodies in South Africa may be able to facilitate the development of tourism enterprises based on reintroductions by:

• providing information on how to monitor wildlife and vegetation effectively
• allowing private reserves in every Province to avoid rates by being proclaimed as nature reserves through the conservation agency
• aggressively marketing the benefits of wildlife meat
• advertising tourism to people from different cultural groups
• educating tourism students, tourism teachers and promoting tourism developments
• changing the image of South Africa and moving away from the focus on the “Big Five”
• aggressively marketing wildlife viewing of smaller endangered species
• standardising laws in all Provinces, particularly laws relating to export and import permits
• standardising qualifications required by tour guides in all Provinces
• permitting a certain percentage of animals to be captured, rather than an exact number, or allowing organisations to write their own permits within boundaries defined by an approved management plan
• allowing more self-regulation by game ranches associations
• prioritising extralimital species and controlling them through special permits, a program of incentives and disincentives and benchmarking systems
• using incentives, disincentives and benchmarking systems to change people’s attitudes to predators and encourage organisations to follow conservation principles.

Published information from previous reintroduction attempts suggests that reintroduction success may be maximised by:

• reintroducing herbivores, or species which breed early and have large clutches
• reintroducing wild-caught animals
• if unable to obtain wild-caught animals, reintroducing puppet-reared animals, or animals reared in free-ranging environments
• reintroducing a large number of individuals
• reintroducing territorial or aggressive mammals into areas with no conspecifics
• conducting predator control.

Tourism enterprises based on reintroduced threatened native mammals in small, fenced areas may be able to increase tourist satisfaction by:

• placing supplementary food or building waterholes in grasslands and areas with sparse vegetation to attract wildlife
• thinning vegetation
• running tours at the time of day wildlife are most active (generally late afternoon or early evening for small native Australian mammals)
• limiting the number of tours in an area
• running tours on foot and limiting the size of tour groups
• providing torches on night tours
• maintaining roads and tracks
• providing or selling pamphlets with information on the wildlife
• providing supplementary food for some species of wildlife
• eradicating introduced species.

Tourism enterprises based on reintroduced threatened native mammals in large, unfenced and mountainous areas may be able to increase tourist satisfaction by:

• providing binoculars to guests
• running tours in areas with less extreme temperatures (eg. high altitudes in summer and low altitudes in winter).

Tourism enterprises based on reintroductions of threatened native mammals may be able to minimise negative impacts by:

• determining the most appropriate techniques for minimising the negative impacts of tourism at their site by using behavioural observations
• using techniques such as ensuring tourists remain on the path, stopping tourists from approaching wildlife too closely, limiting the number of tours in an area, limiting the size of tour groups to small groups and limiting tours to either vehicles or on foot tours (depending on the species present)
• monitoring wildlife numbers over time to ensure populations are not decreasing and wildlife are not being displaced from their favoured feeding areas.

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Last updated: March 2007
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http://www.rirdc.gov.au/reports/Ras/06-028sum.html