Epsilon Archive for Student Projects

Abstract

The feeding of wild animals has been done as a management strategy: supplementary feeding
and diversionary feeding are used to make more ungulates to survive the winter in Sweden
and to drive them away from agriculture and farmlands. Wildlife feeding has expanded in
recent years and is now also used as a tourism attraction to see wild predators in their natural
habitat. This feeding is neither supplementary nor diversionary but conducted for human
interest of economics and tourism. The change of the movement pattern can indicate how the
wildlife animals should be fed. The aim of this study was performed with interviews of
various participants in the industry and considered in relation to ethics and ethological
discussions in the literature written on the subject. Independent of who was interviewed they
all thought that if the attraction was done correctly, didn’t hurt anyone and the society it was
accepted, there should not be any problem to develop the wildlife tourism. The conclusion
from this project is that the wildlife feeding tourism can expand in Sweden in the coming
years, however we have to evaluate the effect on wildlife.