Holidaying in Antarctica

Antarctica has become a popular tourist destination over the years. First starting in the 1950s, expedition cruises take tourists to see the wildlife, unique scenery and geology, and visit research centres. Nowhere else on Earth can visitors can go to a continent totally surrounded by the sea and observe some of the world’s rarest species in some of the world’s harshest conditions. These are all reasons why tourism is gaining momentum and why the tourist season has increased to 173 days per year (Aronson et al. 2011). But how is the tourism industry affecting the wildlife in Antarctic?

Penguins

Before the 1950s, wildlife in Antarctica was not used to seeing humans in their habitats very much. Human activity was mainly focussed on research and so a lot of human activity was conducted in research centres – no one was actively looking for penguins or seals or whales. Now that they are, some penguin species are reacting to them, while others are not.

I found this funny cartoon, portraying this point:

Figure 1. Adapted from Antarctic-monument.org  

Seventeen species of penguins can be found on Antarctica. Of these, there are four penguin species that breed on the Antarctic continent itself: the Adelie, the Emperor, the Chinstrap and the Gentoo penguins (Antarctic Connection, 2014). Lynch et al. (2010) conducted a study on Petermann Island (see figure 3) which found that the Gentoo penguin has shown a reduction in breeding productivity in areas where tourists frequently visit. One explanation for this could be that they are less likely to establish a nest in areas that are frequently visited. Although correlation does not mean causation, it’s in my view that tourist visits has played a role in their population because visiting their habitats can be unsettling.

In spite of this, surprisingly Lynch et al. (2010) also found in their study that the Adélie penguin was not affected by frequent tourist visits in terms of breeding. This shows that the effect of tourist visits is species specific and therefore can be difficult to measure. Figure 2 shows the penguins.

Figure 2. Gentoo penguin (left) and Adélie penguin (right)

The Lynch et al. (2010) paper was very insightful to read. Even though I read it to learn about the impacts of tourism on the breeding productivities of the Adélie and Gentoo penguins, I also learnt about a new potential human cause of a trending population decline of the Adélie penguin. During their study, the authors realised that there was a tick infestation among the Adélie penguin colonies at Petermann Island in North West Antarctica, a popular tourist destination because of its proximity to the southern tip of Argentina. This is shown in figure 3. The fact that tourists frequently visit the Island can help explain the spread of this I. uriae parasite. The evidence leads me to believe that the I. uriae parasite was transported from another North Western Island because the authors point out that this was the first time they had witnessed it on Petermann Island since they started investigating penguins there twenty years ago. This demonstrates that tourist expedition cruises may have transported it from another island. The authors also mention that they can’t rule out that climate change could have created conditions allowing its existence in this region. Either explanation holds humans responsible, at least in part, of this occurrence.

Figure 3: Petermann Island

Invasive species

This leads me nicely to my next topic about how tourism causes the invasion of foreign species. Tourist ships tend to contain double hulls. This is a cause of concern because double hulls provide insulation against temperature reductions as ships make their way to Antarctica, allowing invasive species to survive. An example of an invasive species is the mussel species, Mytilus Galloprovincialis, which was observed to have survived in a sea chest on a supply ship by Lee and Chown (2007). Another invasion species found is a type of green algae called Enteromorpha Intestinolis which was discovered growing on Half Moon Island off the West Antarctic Peninsula, apparently because it was transported there by tourist vessels (Clayton et al., 1997; Aronson et al., 2011). These invasive species can be problematic because they affect the food chain, invade habitats and can potentially initiate and spread new diseases to existing marine wildlife. The latter effect is demonstrated by the tick infestation found on Petermann Island. 

All in all, it seems that tourism in Antarctica is having a somewhat damaging effect on wildlife. Understanding these impacts have actually put me off wanting to visit Antarctica for a holiday, then again, I don't think I would be able to survive the cold anyway! So far, the scores for negative human impacts verses positive/ natural impacts on Antarctica are 2-1.

Apologies for such as negative post! Sometimes the impacts of humans on wildlife are harmful and I am trying to shed light on this. My next post will be about oil spills from tourist ships and how this affects sea birds and other wildlife. So until then, thanks for reading!