Wilderness adventure travel through wildlife habitat
Wilderness travel in remote areas of the major categories of adventure tourism, and the remote areas traversed may often provide habitat for a variety of animal species which tour clients are keen to see. In contrast to the tour products outlined in the previous section, however, for these tours it is the place and the activity which form the primary focus, with the wildlife as an unpredictable bonus component. For example, one may be lucky enough to see a wolf, grizzly bear, or Dall sheep whilst hiking or rafting in wilderness areas of Alaska or northern Canada, but there is no guarantee of this. In addition, since these animals are hunted throughout much of their range, they are likely to run away at the first sign of humans, and close encounters are unlikely. Of course, it is still a good idea to carry capsicum spray, and in some national parks it is a mandatory requirement.
In this category of adventure tourism, the principal adventure component derives from remoteness rather than risk from the animals then selves. Whilst some of the animals seen may potentially be dangerous, such as polar bear or indeed brown or black bear, other animals species which do not pose any immediate threat to human safety may be an equally important component of the tourism experience. Visitors to Svalbard may be particularly keen to see polar bear, for example, but would also be glad to see reindeer, walrus, Arctic fox, snowy owl, and a wide variety of seabirds. Most tours of this type cannot guarantee that clients will see any particular species, so they tend to phrase their marketing materials in somewhat guarded terms. They might say, for example, that the group will look for a particular animal or that they hope to see it. A sea kayaking tour at the northern end of Baffin Island in the Canadian Arctic, for example, is billed as ‘In search of the narwhal’ (Buckley, 2005b).
A very large number of tours worldwide fall into this general category. Hiking trips to Annapurna Base Camp in Nepal, for example, may example, may expect to see Himalayan that. Rafting tours in Tibet may, if they are very lucky, catch a glimpse of a snow leopard. River tours on the Amazon may see freshwater dolphin, macaw, or hoatzin. Off-road vehicle tours in central Australia would be disappointed if they did not see kangaroo and emu. Horseback tours in Patagonia would look out for puma, guanaco, and vicuna. Mountaineers in the Andes would look out for condor, and those in Scotland for golden eagle, whilst sea kayakers in southwestern Alaska would certainly expect to see bald eagle and black bear at appropriate seasons. The jungle lodges of tropical South America advertise the diversity of their bird and mammal fauna as a major attraction, without necessarily singling out any particular species. Hikers on Mt Kenya might hope to see hyrax or malachite sunbird, depending on their particular interests.
In the marine environment, the majority of dive tourists expect to see a variety of ocean wildlife, but in most cases they would still see diving itself as the primary activity and wildlife as a secondary attraction. The animals concerned range from sessile and sedentary creatures, such as corals and anemones, to giant pelagic creatures, such as the larger sharks, whale sharks, and whales. Most dive tours, however, search for particular fish species characteristic of the area concerned, whether these be scorpion fish or seahorses, Maori wrasse or moray eels, blennies or butterfly fish. Turtles are also a strong attraction, and so are various crustaceans, from fairy shrimp to the larger lobsters. Even molluscs can be a significant attraction, as for example the triton shell or the red file clam.
Most commercial dive tours visit the same particular sites repeatedly, and some species and indeed individual marine animals can be seen routinely at the same place on every dive. With few exceptions, however, they are not habituated to human presence in the same way as some of the terrestrial wildlife, so dive tours of this type are more akin to wilderness travel than to close-range wildlife watching experiences. The exceptions typically involve particular places where divers routinely feed, and sometimes touch, individual fish or stingrays.