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Includes destinations from all around the globe.
New features
· Wildlife encounters are spread across the globe ensuring good sales in the USA, Europe and beyond
· Wildlife tourism is no longer the domain of specialists. Many people choose their next holiday based around seeing a particular species, such as orangutans in Borneo, lemurs in Madagascar, or giant pandas in China.
· Alongside the increase in wildlife tourism is a parallel rise in the popularity of activity holidays. Swimming with dolphins is high up on the ‘must-do’ list of many, while few wildlife lovers can resist the lure of tracking mountain gorillas.
· The phenomenal success of David Attenborough’s Frozen Planet on BBC highlights the huge popular interest in the world’s coldest regions. Close Encounters with Wildlife takes you up close with polar bears and penguins as well as seals and sea lions.
· The BBC carried out a survey of 20,000 people asking them; ‘what would you most like to do before you die?’ The number one answer by some way was swimming with dolphins. The boom in this activity has caused considerable problems with people swimming with captive dolphins. In order to stock such places, whole pods of dolphins are rounded up to obtain young females that are then shipped around the world. There are issues with some wild swim programs with detrimental interference to the pods. This is addressed under the swimming with wild dolphins section.
· ‘Walking with lions’ is very different to observing lions on a walking safari. There are several companies in Africa that offer people the chance to walk with and handle lion cubs and at first glance this activity seems very appealing. The reality is that a constant supply of lion cubs are needed, with some sold on to hunting estates where people pay to kill them. Lion conservationists are opposed to this practice which is covered in ‘Walking in search of lions’.