Tourist attitude and perception of bats
Our study demonstrates the potential
of bat-watching ecotourism to improve public knowledge and conservation
willingness of the public towards bats in the Philippines. The public
perception of bats has an important impact on their conservation (Aziz
et al. 2016). Bat watching was the primary motivation of tourists to
visit MBCS, suggesting prior interest by visitors to bats.
Contrary to our hypothesis, this
study revealed that more tourists have positive perception towards bats
than reported in many studies
(Tanalgo et al. 2016; Musila et
al. 2018). We found a more positive perception among highly educated
respondents than those with basic education. This can be associated with
their prior experience or higher access to knowledge from their
educational experience or background giving them a higher level of
understanding of the natural world (Lim and Wilson 2019). In the
Philippines, Tanalgo et al. (2016) found that respondents with higher
education had a lower willingness to participate in bat hunting
activities or consumption bats for subsistence compared to those with
lower education level. Public negative behaviour towards wildlife is
driven by the greater likelihood of encounter and thus the possibility
of negative experiences (Kellert et al. 1996; Kaltenborn 2007; Aziz et
al. 2016; Tanalgo 2017). Similar findings by Tanalgo et al. (2016),
showed that local communities living near caves with large colonies of
bats had more negative perceptions towards bats than those living
further away, and promote intentional culling because they believe that
bats were responsible for destroying their fruit orchards. In Malaysia,
local communities in Tioman Island tend to have a negative perception
towards co-existing with Flying foxes because of their noise and
destruction of fruit crops (Aziz et al. 2016). Similarly, in Australia,
people tend to develop a negative perception of flying foxes after
roosts move into residential communities in urban areas (Tait et al.
2014).
We found Filipino tourists were more familiar with Philippine bat
species than foreign tourists. The support and involvement of locals are
vital for effective conservation of wildlife populations and their
habitats. Local citizens have more exposure to their local biodiversity
and environment, and therefore develop a higher familiarity and
understanding of it (Karanth and Nepal 2011; Souto and Tickin 2012;
Theobald et al. 2015). Furthermore locals may have key roles in species
conservation (Raymundo and Caballes 2016), but this may differ based on
cultural values and experience (Tanalgo et al. 2016; Tanalgo 2017).
However, our analysis shows that prior experience or exposure with bats
was not directly associated with urban tourists’ conservation
willingness, which mirrored to tourists’ general lack of experience with
bats. People’s willingness to support species conservation depends on
their knowledge about the importance of species which varies in social
backgrounds (Lindemann-Matthies and Bose 2008). For example, urban
dwellers have a lower understanding of wildlife than rural areas because
they have less exposure to natural environments (Kato et al. 2019). In
our present study, prior knowledge of ecosystem services was an
important predictor of conservation willingness before and after
bat-watching suggesting the importance of long-term knowledge. In
addition to this, the perception of the conservation relevance of
bat-watching to bats and caves as a conservation initiative was a strong
predictor of conservation willingness among tourists (see Table 2 and
Figure 2). This suggests that the public willingness to support bat
management initiatives can be facilitated by wildlife tourism platforms
to enable more effective conservation and management (Lundberg et al.
2019).
Conservation willingness differed by age and educational attainment. We
found greater conservation willingness among tourists with higher
education attainment. This is comparable to the findings of Musila et
al. (2018) in Africa showing that older adults with higher educational
attainment have a more positive perception and support for bat
conservation. But in our study, younger (< 20 years old) urban
tourists showed higher conservation willingness. One plausible reason
that drives younger tourists’ association to conservation willingness
was their access to environmental science education from secondary to
tertiary education, which is included in the modern Philippine
educational curriculum. Previous studies showed that younger respondents
exposed to environment-related activities or education tend to have
increased pro-environmental attitudes (Liefländer and Bogner 2014) and
nature connectedness (Liefländer et al. 2013; Gräntzdörffer et al.
2019). This younger age group is ideal for spreading conservation
awareness due to their proven higher influence in changing and improving
adult behaviour towards environmental conservation (Damerell et al.
2013). Therefore, adapting bat-watching activities friendly for the
younger audience could have positive effects and enhance their
connectedness to “uncharismatic” species, thereby facilitating their
conservation.
Our study showed that a large proportion of tourists were satisfied with
bat-watching and learnt more about bats. In the post-visit survey, we
noted that sampled tourists frequently showed higher support for bat
conservation management and increased positive perception towards cave
and bat conservation (see Figure 3b). Therefore, we suggest that
integrative conservation education (e.g., detailing bat ecosystem
services) and experience-based approaches such as bat cave watching, and
tours could be useful to bolster human-bat relations (Trewhella et al.
2005; Musila et al. 2018).