ABSTRACT

In the context of wildlife tourism, human experiences with other species are often divided into the binary categories of consumptive and non-consumptive interactions. This chapter explores moral and ethical issues inherent in tourism experiences where tourists both watch and eat the same species. Human and non-human animals have a long, complex, and essential history of interactions, in which the relationships formed vary temporally, spatially, and culturally. Tourism is just one of the many ways humans engage with other animals, and in the context of tourism, human interactions with other animal species are no less broad and complex. The chapter includes two case studies examining whales and tourists, and seals and tourists, in Iceland. One critical difference between whales and seals can be found in the history of human–wildlife interactions in Iceland, namely the importance of seals for subsistence.