AN OVERCROWDED CITY
An overcrowded city with little or no security was likely to have the most severe impact on local wildlife and wildlife habitat, the researchers wrote, a problem that had yet to be addressed.
“We’re talking a state of emergency with respect to tourism and wildlife protection,” said Dr. Thomas M. Spadola of the University of Missouri. In those areas, there is little wildlife habitat to feed those creatures.
The researchers noted that if a large-sized tourist would visit a park or wildlife protected area, they could see hundreds of small animals as well as the hundreds of other species they might encounter. For example, they noted a pair of red mink deer on the shore of a creek in a community of 12,000 residents. Another large white panda was seen about 100 feet from the pond in a rural area.
The study also found that tourist visits to parks or wildlife corridors may increase the risk of human-caused wildlife problems. Wildlife protection advocates have said that allowing foreign tourists to live in more than one state will cause problems for tourism industry in certain parts of the country, and in some areas with fewer than two dozen residents, the researchers said.
In a similar study, researchers at Texas A&M University reported on problems with small mammals in areas of the US that were largely closed to humans, a point that would likely become clear in a future report.