Reassessing public opinion of captive cetacean attractions with a photo elicitation survey

• Published in: PeerJ
• Main Authors: Wassermann, Sophia N., Hind-Ozan, Edward J., Seaman, Julia
• Other Authors: School for Field Studies Center for Marine Resource Studies, Turks and Caicos Department of Environment and Marine Affairs
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: PeerJ 2018
• Subjects: Killer Whale; Killer whale
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.5953; https://peerj.com/articles/5953.pdf; https://peerj.com/articles/5953.xml; https://peerj.com/articles/5953.html

Background Captive cetacean attractions are growing in number globally, their operators citing entertainment, education, and conservation as benefits. Those for and against developing such attractions claim public support. Previous public opinion research, however, shows little consensus, partly due to the introduction of biases in study design that influence participants’ responses. Those involved in, or concerned with, developing and licensing these attractions need to better understand what drives the lack of consensus to take socially-acceptable decisions. Methods We reviewed previous research on public opinion of cetacean captivity, noting possible sources of bias. Survey question wording can be a major source of introduced bias, so we used an open-ended photo elicitation approach. We showed tourists in the Turks Caicos Islands ( N = 292) images of a marine mammal park (MMP) killer whale show and a swim-with-the-dolphins (SWTD) attraction and asked for their qualitative comments on the potential development of each. They also indicated how likely they would be to visit each on a Likert scale. Results Respondents were generally against visiting MMP killer whale shows, with 60.9% not likely to visit. SWTD attractions were more popular; 60.3% were likely to visit. For SWTD, USA residents were more likely to visit; older respondents and those staying in all-inclusive resorts were less likely. Those staying in all-inclusive resorts were also less likely to visit MMP killer whale shows. The great majority of qualitative comments centred on either entertainment value or animal welfare concerns. There were very few, if any, comments on the education or conservation value of these attractions. Discussion Our findings contradict several previous studies on public opinion of captive cetaceans that did not use photo elicitation. The support shown for MMP killer whale shows in this survey was well below that claimed by studies conducted on behalf of captive cetacean attraction operators. Opposition to SWTD was also ...