Assessing Potential Resource Use Conflicts Between Wildlife and Recreationists in Gwaii Haanas National Park Reserve, British Columbia

Gwaii Haanas National Park Reserve and Haida Heritage Site, located off the northwest coast of British Columbia, represents a remote wilderness and cultural experience for many visitors. Ecological integrity is a priority for Canadian national parks that requires effective management of tourism and visitation, which constitute internal threats to many parks. I developed a GIs-based method to examine patterns of visitor use and identified potential conflict areas by determining how intensively used zones coincided with seabird colonies and Peregrine Falcon eyries. Overnight sites and travel activity are spatially and temporally heterogeneous over the Gwaii Haanas landscape and vary with visitor types. Wildlife sites, near attraction sites, were most susceptible to refuge boundary violations with peaks occurring during July and August, which is consistent with the pattern of visitor entry. Recommendations for park managers are framed within a spectrum of management options and challenges associated with marine reserve management.