Unhealthy travelers present challenges to sustainable primate ecotourism

This article, whose lead author is Mike Muehlenbein, details a survey of visitors to the Sepilok Orangutan Rehabilitation Centre, Sabah, Malaysia. The survey's goal was to illuminate the amount and type of illnesses carried by human visitors to the Centre, and to stress the threat of human-borne illnesses on great ape conservation. 15% of the visitors reported current cold symptoms. The article ends with several suggestions for minimizing the transmission of diseases from visitors to the animals and park personell.