Visitors’ awareness and assessment of recreational disturbance of wildlife in the Donau-Auen National Park

SummaryThe Donau-Auen National Park in Austria is situated partially within the area of the city of Vienna, and is exposed to high-use pressure including off-trail use and off-leash dog walking. Management measures are based on, among other things, the knowledge of the user groups’ perceptions of the impacts of their own behaviour on park wildlife, in particular, problematic behaviour. On-site visitors were interviewed using a standardised questionnaire during the winter of 2002 (N=271) in order to assess their awareness of the disturbance of wildlife due to different anthropogenic uses, including recreational ones. Only 40% of the respondents were aware that wildlife is disturbed, and merely 12% believed that they could have potentially disturbed wildlife on the day of the interview. In contrast, the wildlife experts interviewed assigned greater negative impacts on wildlife to some recreational uses. No differences were found between visitors with unproblematic behaviour and regular off-trail walkers and dog walkers – even those whose dogs were unleashed – in regard to their own potentially impacting behaviour. Some management implications are discussed, taking the specific situation of a small national park on the urban–rural fringe into consideration.