Social Media for Social Species: A case study on the behavioural transitions of bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus) in the presence of tourism, Montenegro, South Adriatic

Abstract

Interactions between touristic vessels and cetaceans are increasing. Ecotourism, whale watching tours or the increasing economic power of the industry have all contributed to the current situation. Recent tourism studies have made cases for both short and long-term changes for targeted cetacean populations. Short-term changes refer to behavioural responses as a result of marine vessel movements where vocalisation variation and increased horizontal and vertical dive intervals have been observed. Investigating behavioural transitions of bottlenose dolphins in the absence and presence of tourism vessels, we modelled the impacts in control and impact chains, making a case for social media use to increase scientific data collection in other areas of research. In the presence of tourism, increased diving behaviours could relate to increased vessel avoidance whilst increased group cohesive behaviours may be mistaken for tighter group formations in the case of milling and resting behaviours within closer proximity to vessels. Social media searches within a two-week period using a hashtag tracking website yielded a 26.5% success rate of usable posts for scientific data. Although it is not possible to relate short-term changes in behavioural transitions to long-term changes in behavioural budget, it is evident tourism can elicit strong behavioural responses. In the knowledge that guidelines and mitigation strategies can often be ignored or take years to be implemented, we suggest using touristic habits to our benefit. Ultimately this novel way of citizen science would contribute to implementing appropriate conservation strategies, resulting in stricter regulations regarding marine vessel traffic in cetacean hotspots.