The modern concept of ecotourism involves traveling to engage in attractive and interesting environments, often including contact with indigenous people, without contributing to the degradation of the subjects of interest (Carrier and Macleod, 2005). The main principles of ecotourism focus on actively contributing to the conservation of natural resources, integrating the knowledge of native communities into ecotourism planning to enhance community well-being and organizing tourists into small groups (World Tourism Organization, 2002). As an important activity, ecotourism can balance biodiversity conservation and livelihood improvement (Forje et al., 2021) and can become a catalyst for positive change in tourism development (UNWTO, 2017). Ecotourism frequently occurs in national parks. National parks serve multiple functions, protecting natural areas and ecosystem dynamics while providing recreation and nature education for tourists (Sriarkarin and Lee, 2018). Many national parks attempt to draw large numbers of tourists for economic development. However, apart from illegal logging and poaching, inherent tensions between environmental preservation and economic development frequently arise due to the excessive development of tourism infrastructure and congested traffic (Gössling, 1999; Ghazvini et al., 2020). With the increasing number of unmanaged tourists, more vegetation is trampled, and tensions are becoming acute. Ecotourism should not lead to the degradation of national parks. However, unwitting damage may be caused by tourists (Buultjens et al., 2005; Herrera-Silveira et al., 2010), and non-consumptive tourists may expect more local amenities and infrastructure than consumptive tourists such as safari hunters (Deere, 2011). The management of non-consumptive tourists to protect the natural resources of parks incurs financial costs. Therefore, it is essential to balance environmental protection and economic development.

Feral dogs are well-organized hunters of ungulates in many parts of the world, causing great damage to wildlife populations and ultimately to the ecosystem. In Pakistan, the impacts of feral dogs on the wildlife have not been documented yet. In a period of fifteen years (2006-2020), feral dogs have killed hundreds of threatened markhor in Chitral gol national park (CGNP), Pakistan. Despite direct predation other impacts including disturbance and competition with other natural predators, could compromise conservation and management efforts. The population of feral dogs seems to have been increased with the increase of dumping sites by communities. Our findings suggest that there are pressing needs of controlling the feral dogs population and eradicating them from the core zone of CGNP and surrounding buffer communities. Conventional culling of dogs should be coupled with modern techniques like castration and sterilization. Communities should be educated regarding the clean environment, proper disposal of home wastes and, biodiversity conservation.