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Achieving Bat Conservation Through Tourism

Bats are beneficial to ecosystems around the world, and are often keystone species. However, bat populations are declining worldwide and conservation efforts are needed to conserve bat species throughout the world. Worldwide, superstitions and fear of bats prevail and prolong negative attitudes and human hostility toward most bat species. In the case of other species (e.g. wolves and alligators), tourism efforts have led to improving attitudes and species viability. These examples suggest that bat tourism has a potential to conserve bat populations while providing social and economic benefits to local people in host communities. This article adopts an existing definition of non-consumptive wildlife-oriented recreation to frame the issues, summarises the ecological importance of bat species, provides an overview of the existing bat–human relationship, and adopts guidance from existing wildlife tourism initiatives. Information based on studies of wildlife tourists seeking other species is presented, as are examples of bat conservation initiatives based on tourism to change attitudes toward bats while stressing awareness of both potential negative impacts on bat species and economic benefits for local communities. Several existing examples of destinations which are attracting tourists to view bats, are discussed.