Killer whales become "killer whales". How should scientific whale watching abide by the rules?

It is strong and swift, with the power to destroy the world, and is a bloodthirsty beast in the rough seas; it also has the same color as a panda, and is cute, and is known as a cute "fat tiger". This is the killer whale, the largest member of the dolphin family of the toothed whale suborder .

It is also a well-deserved top hunter｜TuChong Creative

But the killer whale Tilikum mentioned today left the vast ocean at a very young age and became an "actor" in the oceanarium to please humans . During the long and depressing captivity, it killed 3 people .

The rise of whale watching

Tilikum's tragic life made many people realize that oceanariums are simply unable to provide adequate breeding environments for cetaceans and dolphins, and that you will never see real whales in oceanariums .

Another way to appreciate whales is gradually becoming popular, that is to actually go to the ocean and "whale watch" .

In 2016, people first discovered a group of Bryde's whales in the waters of Weizhou Island in Guangxi. They were also the first large whale group found near the coast in mainland China. As a result, whale watching has become a popular tourist attraction in the area.

Bryde's whales in Weizhou Island | Chen Mo

However, during the whale watching in Weizhou Island, some whale watching teams got too close to whales and chased whales , posing a threat to the safety of both wild animals and tourists. Weizhou Island therefore launched a "whale protection operation" and issued a statement saying that it would severely crack down on illegal whale watching and remind tourists and businesses not to go out to sea to watch whales without permission .

Weizhou Island Tourism Area Management Committee issued a statement | Screenshot of WeChat public account

In fact, in the context of the lack of marine animal welfare protection in traditional aquariums, these advantages of whale watching are particularly valuable. However, scientific whale watching should be carried out without interfering with the normal activities of whales . During the period, visitors can not only experience the beauty of whales in their natural state, but also learn relevant natural education knowledge.

What is whale watching?

Whale watching is an activity in which people observe whales in their natural environment. Its purpose is similar to bird watching, and it is an entertainment activity with a popular science and educational nature . Usually, whale watching refers to watching whales at sea on a whale watching boat. Of course, whale watchers can also watch whales on land on the coast, or watch whales from the air by helicopter.

Watching southern right whales in Peninsula Valdes | Leonardo Lanza / wikipedia

The earliest large-scale land-based whale watching can be traced back to 1950, when a total of 10,000 people watched the migration of gray whales off the coast of San Diego, USA.

Some mothers with calves are even willing to let their curious calves approach boats to observe humans | ryan harvey / flickr

Gray whale | Merrill Gosho/wikipedia

In order to manage whale watching activities in an orderly manner and avoid conflicts with the normal lives of whales, management agencies for the whale watching industry came into being. The International Whaling Commission (IWC) is a platform for intergovernmental dialogue on whale conservation. Although the IWC only managed whales as exploitable resources when it was first established, in 1975, the IWC began to realize the importance of whales as ornamental and educational resources and assumed the responsibility of guiding scientific whale watching activities. Currently, there are corresponding whale watching management agencies in many countries and regions around the world.

Scientific Whale Watching Process

Whale watching is not something that can be accomplished by simply going to a beach, standing on the shore and waiting, or following a boat out to sea. If you are determined to go whale watching, we need to understand the general process of whale watching before departure.

1. Prepare your lessons

**Check the main species, seasons and general habits of whale watching activities in your destination. **Some sea areas have whales all year round, while other sea areas can only observe certain whales at certain times of the year. Learn about the background in advance and choose the time when the target whales frequently appear to watch whales to avoid wasted trips.

Blue whale | wikipedia

After deciding on the whale watching target and time, you need to choose a reliable whale watching organization and guide. You can check online in advance the local organization responsible for managing whale watching activities, and then check for groups recognized by the management organization and qualified to conduct whale watching .

Qualified whale watching groups are more responsible, have more whale watching experience, can provide professional guidance, and can ensure the safety of passengers.

2. Find your target with the guide

Watching whales in the wild starts with finding the whales. Whether on land, at sea or in the air, identifying the spout is the fastest way to spot whales .

A plume of steam from a killer whale's breath | Jim Pfeiffenberger / National Park Service

A blowhole is a column of steam formed when whales come up to the surface to breathe and exhale the air from their blowholes on their heads, spraying nearby seawater into the air. Different whale species have different blowhole shapes due to their own structure and behavior. Whale watching experts can even judge what kind of whale has appeared on the sea surface based on the shape of the blowhole.

Different whales have different characteristics when they emerge from the water. We can roughly identify their species by judging their spray, emergence form, diving posture, tail leaf appearance and other characteristics | environment.gov.au

For example, sperm whales are toothed whales with only one blowhole, located in the front left of their heads, so their blowholes are slanted forward ; baleen whales have two blowholes, and when they blow, the blowholes look like a heart-shaped blowhole that forks upwards when viewed from the head or tail. The blowhole shape of the southern right whale is particularly obvious. The blowholes of super-large whales such as blue whales are absolutely majestic and towering .

A pair of blowholes of a humpback whale | wikipedia

Heart-shaped squirt | wikipedia

In addition to identifying the spout, we can also determine the species of whales based on their size, water appearance, distribution area and other characteristics. Most whales will raise their tails high before diving, especially before deep diving. The tails of different whales vary in shape, which is also one of the bases for determining whale species .

The tail of a whale is raised when entering the water | Pixabay

3. Comply with the guidelines

The whale watching industry in almost all regions has corresponding codes of conduct, so when watching whales, you need to pay attention to the local guidelines.

At sea, once a whale-watching boat finds an observation target, it cannot rush directly towards the animal . There are default "no-go zones" and "low-speed zones" around the observed object. The no-go zones are usually in front of and behind the animal's direction of travel. The boat needs to approach the animal at a low speed from the low-speed zone on the side of the animal and keep a certain distance from the animal . When multiple whale-watching boats are watching whales together, they cannot completely surround the observed object, so sometimes the boats need to wait in line.

The whale watching code of conduct also limits the duration of whale watching at sea, usually between half an hour and one and a half hours . Spending too much time with the whales is also a disturbance to them.

As passengers, in addition to understanding and abiding by the rules, we must also follow the instructions of the guide on the whale watching boat, such as wearing life jackets at all times, being restrained, not making loud noises, etc. While ensuring our own safety, we must not disturb the activities of whales.

In Antarctica, people line up in small boats to observe humpback whales. The photographer's boat was at the back and had to wait for the boat in front to leave before he could move forward to observe | Corinna Gamma / Hurtigruten

4. Listen to the explanation

It is also important to listen carefully to your guide’s explanations. An experienced guide can teach you valuable knowledge about whales and share the meaning behind each whale’s behavior.

Once, a tourist showed me a video of humpback whales collectively using bubble nets to catch fish while on a cruise. Perhaps they missed the guide's explanation, so they didn't know what the bubbles were used for. Later, they learned that these bubbles were tools made by humpback whales to trap prey, and they were so excited that they exclaimed.

Without professional explanations, passengers would enjoy a visual feast but not understand its meaning, which would be a pity | Christin Khan / wikimedia

Humpback whale | wikimedia commons

What does the whale watching industry bring?

1. For operators

The whale watching industry has brought a prosperous economy and abundant jobs to operators. According to research statistics, in 2009 alone, the global whale watching industry had revenue of $2 billion, and at the same time, the whale watching industry provided jobs for at least 13,000 people.

2. For consumers

Unlike traditional aquariums, whale watching not only presents consumers with the animals themselves, but also the animals' living environment. If they are lucky, consumers can also observe the animals' natural behaviors in the wild, such as feeding, playing, raising young, and avoiding predators.

Photos taken during whale watching on Australia's Gold Coast | Chensiyuan / wikimedia

Once you see these animals free in the wild, the behavior of captive animals in aquariums will seem very sad . Consumers will naturally respect the life and freedom of wild animals.

3. For researchers

Due to the limitation of funds, energy and manpower, whale researchers cannot conduct long-term whale surveys in the wild. The whale watching industry can give both operators and consumers the opportunity to participate in the work of collecting whale data . This is a mutually beneficial cooperation, and the research data of researchers can in turn provide theoretical support for the whale watching industry.

Researchers observe a humpback whale | Green Fire Productions / flickr

4. For whales themselves

Compared with whale watching at sea, whale watching on land has little impact on whales . However, whale watching at sea has both positive and negative impacts on whales, depending on whether the behavior of the whale watcher is scientific and reasonable .

Unsatisfactory whale watching will worsen the relationship between whales and whale watching boats. In some waters, whales are busy feeding or avoiding predators (such as killer whales and sharks), and are more wary of whale watching boats. They will selectively avoid whale watching boats. In order to ensure that passengers can see whales, whale watching boats will choose to speed up and chase cetaceans , and even have multiple boats chasing the same whale together. This situation will only make whales more afraid of whale watching boats . In addition, the disorderly encirclement of multiple whale watching boats will also make whales feel nervous and anxious .

Killer whales prepare to hunt seals | Robert Pitman / wikimedia

In addition, in waters where whaling is legal, whale watching increases the risk of these whales being killed . Whales cannot judge the purpose of the ships approaching them. Once whale watching ships cultivate the whales' awareness of "ships are harmless" and make them relax their vigilance, the next time the whaling ships hunt first, it is very likely that the whales that have lost their vigilance against the ships will be the first to be hunted.

Whale Watching in China

To carry out whale watching, there must be abundant whale resources. The whale resources in the open sea are difficult for ordinary people to access, and there are too many restrictions such as ships, time, and safe operation. Therefore, having abundant offshore whale resources is the key to developing whale watching tourism.

The whale resources near the coast of Taiwan, our treasure island, are very rich, especially on the east coast, where you can see false killer whales, Wright's dolphins, spinner dolphins, Furman's dolphins, killer whales, sperm whales and other cetaceans.

Spinner dolphins photographed while whale watching in Hualien, Taiwan | Feng Kangkang

There are relatively few whales to watch in the coastal waters of the mainland, making it difficult to develop a long-term, stable whale watching tourism industry. Until researchers discovered a group of Bryde's whales in the waters of Weizhou Island in Guangxi. They appear in the waters between Weizhou Island and Xieyang Island to its southeast around October every year, actively feeding there until they quietly leave around April of the following year.

The appearance of Bryde's whales has brought a glimmer of hope to the whale watching industry in mainland China. Unfortunately, the whale watching activities organized by profit-seeking operators have many problems: the qualifications of whale watching ships have not been recognized by relevant departments, whale watching is not divided into time periods, and reasonable distance and boat speed are not maintained during whale watching ...

Bryde's whale hunting | Documentary "Aerial China"

At present, there is still some distance between Weizhou Island and the formal development and management of the whale watching industry . The top priority is to improve the scientific research investigation of Bryde's whales on Weizhou Island, understand the habits of Bryde's whales here, and formulate reasonable and standardized whale watching behavioral guidelines.

In addition to Bryde's whales, there are some small whales that live along the mainland coast. The Chinese white dolphin is a first-class wild protected animal in China. They mainly live in Xiamen Bay in Fujian, Shantou in Guangdong, the Pearl River Estuary, Leizhou Peninsula, Sanniang Bay in Guangxi, and the southwestern waters of Hainan.

Chinese white dolphins like to live in shallow waters and are therefore vulnerable to human activities. Land reclamation, water pollution, ship collisions, fishing nets, etc. can all affect the survival of Chinese white dolphins | Meow Fish Sauce

Some of the small white dolphin populations live in coastal waters and have been severely negatively affected by human activities, so it is not suitable to carry out dolphin watching activities on them. As for some populations with a large number of individuals and stability, dolphin watching activities can be carried out appropriately.

Whale watching has changed the traditional impression of modern people on cetaceans. They have gone from being directly exploitable resources to being ornamental and performing animals in aquariums, and then returned to wild animals in their natural state. Whale watching has changed people's attitude towards nature . Through real "contact" with cetaceans in their natural state, more people can feel the beauty of wild animals. Under the premise of scientific evaluation and standardized management, the whale watching industry will be a sustainable and environmentally friendly industry .

Article author: Miaoyujiang

Video author: Sa Yu

This article comes from the Species Calendar, welcome to forward

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