The declaration of a new small-range species increases wildlife tourism

Thousands of new species are declared each year, including species with small geographic ranges that are vulnerable to extinction. Using a synthetic control methodology, I show that the declaration of a new species of bird with a small geographic range caused the average annual number of wildlife tourists (birdwatchers) in the two US counties where the species lives to increase by 93.5 % and the annual activity level (number of birdwatching checklists logged) to increase by 143.4 %. Overall, an additional 7323 birdwatching checklists were logged in the three years following the species declaration. Most new wildlife tourists were estimated to live >300 km away but within the same continent. These impacts occurred even though the population of birds now considered a distinct species was already known to science and the new species is visually indistinguishable from a widespread related species. There was no detectable impact on county-level GDP in a tourism-related sector. Wildlife tourism expenditures have the potential to incentivize conservation if tourism benefits are captured locally, but higher visitation rates also place pressure on sensitive ecosystems by increasing the possibility of disturbance to wildlife, destruction of habitat, and wildfires. Measuring the impacts of increased visitation quantitatively can help tourism managers understand the scale of changes in tourism and assess the need to minimize impacts. The results in this paper highlight a need for tourism managers to develop plans for harnessing wildlife tourism dollars at the local level to use for the conservation of newly declared species.