Mountain gorilla tourism generates conservation funding essential for their survival while potentially exposing them to human diseases - careful management aims to balance welfare risks and conservation benefits.
Mountain gorilla ecotourism welfare management represents one of the most sophisticated human-wildlife interaction programs globally. Strict protocols including masks, distance rules, group sizes and health screening of tourists address disease transmission risk. However, habituated gorillas cannot opt out of human interaction and must adapt their behaviour around tourists. Research documents some behavioural change in habituated groups. The welfare calculation must balance individual gorilla stress from tourism against the conservation funding that prevents extinction - for mountain gorillas, tourism revenue has been demonstrably effective in reducing poaching. Continual protocol improvement based on welfare monitoring is essential.