Swim-with-whales tourism – an updated review of commercial operations

Abstract

In 2003, the whale watching sub-committee of the IWC suggested that swim-with-whale operations were becoming wide-spread, and should be more fully reviewed in the future. In order to fulfil this task, and to monitor the development of the industry, we extended and updated the initial work presented at IWC 55 (SC/55/WW4). As in the previous paper, web searches were conducted using a variety of key phrases and search engines. In addition, a general request for information was sent to two international email lists and to colleagues in areas where swim-with-whale tours were known or suspected to operate. Only swims with large whales, not small cetaceans, were considered. Fifty-one commercial operations offering formal swims with whales and a smaller number of opportunistic swims were identified worldwide, as opposed to 29 formal swims in the previous work. Areas with the greatest number of operations featured warm, clear water (i.e., good visibility); baleen whale mating and calving grounds were thus most often targeted. Swims with humpback and minke whales were found most frequently, although other baleen whales were also targeted; a small number of operators offered swims with toothed whales. Silver Bank in the Dominican Republic (humpbacks) had at least seven companies operating tours (an increase of one in two years); Tonga (humpbacks) had at least thirteen operators (an increase of five in two years); and the Great Barrier Reef (minkes) had at least five operators (a decrease of one in two years). Several areas, including Rurutu (French Polynesia) and Mayotte (Mozambique Channel) have had swim-with-whale operations initiated since the last review. Web sites mentioned whale conservation and passenger safety notably less often than in the previous review; whale research, conservation, or operational guidelines were all mentioned in less than 50% of web sites. Swim-with-whale operations continued both in the presence and absence of domestic legislation prohibiting whale disturbance and even, in at least three cases (Argentina, Brazil, and the Azores), specifically prohibiting swimming with whales