Whale Watching in Costa Rica: How You Can Help

By William Rossiter

An example of where CSI puts your support to work is this very condensed version of Priscilla Cubero-Pardo's research, entitled "Assessing the Impact of Whale Watching in Costa Rica". One of the world's hot spots for ecotourism has problems; this early assessment should provide crucial data to help manage and improve this exploding industry, benefiting cetaceans, local economies, and tourists' satisfaction, but will the officials heed it?

She reported that whale watching activities in Costa Rica have increased significantly in the last three years, from three operators in one area in the Pacific and a second one in the Caribbean in 1997, to today, with six areas and 36 operators. Of the eight common species, spotted and bottlenose dolphins and humpback whales are focused on in the Pacific, while the Caribbean tours focus on bottlenose, spotted and tucuxi dolphins. Her team began in February 2001 to evaluate 19 operators for quality, contents, boat behavior, and assumed impacts on cetacean responses and behavior. The 17 other operations refused to cooperate. The 19 reported that with 478 tours per year, the estimated total income was US$1,447,779.00. Quepos alone accounted for 78 percent of the total. Cetaceans reacted with some negative behaviors in 89 percent of the tours and, by standards set for whale watching elsewhere, all tours made some form of mistake. Boats and operations varied considerably. Some carried four people, some forty. Some had no life jackets or radios. Others had motor problems. Only one gave reasonable natural history information, and none knew anything about guidelines.

While the Costa Rican Tourism Institute has already started a promotional campaign in the media, currently there is no official pressure for regulations, guidelines, or training. You can help directly by going to: http://www.tourism-costarica.com and, if you are an experienced whale watcher, tell them why there should be regulations, guidelines and training. Do not mention Priscilla Cubero-Pardo's research, but do express your opinion about harassing whales and dolphins, and explain how the better whale watches you have been on are run. Help them to understand that today's tourists will not support whale watches that only exploit, and how the better operations make more money. You can make a difference.