Another women seriously injured by whale - Australia

[Wingy]

It's all harassment. No the mother/calf pairs aren't "playing with you." They are stuck at the surface, because the calf can't dive away from danger yet. Mommy is not playing. She's is worried and she is pissed off. The boat ops are clearly taking advantage of this. There's even a proper scientific study showing this

I Agree with you actually. I personally don't support spotter plane whale or whale shark chase and jump harassment, I've been lucky enough to have encountered both numerous times just by chance from my childhood to adulthood there...over 50 years now. I also worked on the triple bottom line analysis of unmanaged camping and tourism on the Coral Coast so i can only shrug my shoulders and go with some management is better than none.

 

[HalcyonDaze]

It's all harassment. No the mother/calf pairs aren't "playing with you." They are stuck at the surface, because the calf can't dive away from danger yet. Mommy is not playing. She's is worried and she is pissed off. The boat ops are clearly taking advantage of this. There's even a proper scientific study showing this

I think there's a line; unfortunately without a hard cap on the number of boats I think it gets crossed. When I was in Moorea we were trying to stay away from the crowds and just do drops with 4-6 of us and a guide at a decent distance and seeing if the whales would come to us. The calves can stay under for about 7 minutes, which is about half of what the mother will do but beats any human besides maybe a champion freediver. And we were not allowed to dive down on the whales. The concern is not so much that they can't get away; it's that the periods when they are stopped are when they are resting and if those are interrupted it's stress on the whales. The mothers and calves we saw, the mother stayed put for a bit while the calf came up 2-3 times and looked us over before they moved on.

Unfortunately, in Moorea at least the whale snorkel business has exploded - I think 3-4 years ago there were only a half-dozen boats working the island. Last year there were 33 boats run by 21 different tour operators and I definitely saw cases where there were 20-30 orange-crested snorks (tourists in those ridiculous full-face masks) making a wall in the water. Fortunately our boat captain was one of the best on the island and more often than not we got whales to ourselves.

The owners of the operation I used were some of the early ones and they've been trying to push for a cap on the number of boats, but that apparently is a decision the FP and French governments are not about to make. The couple I spoke to said they were considering getting out of the whale snorkel business because it's tough to hold yourself to a policy of not crowding the whales and thus passing up opportunities for your customers while folks on other boats are getting to see whales. Covid-19 might thin the tour operations a bit, particularly the ones dependent on foreign staff (FP didn't reopen for international visitors until July 15), but unfortunately it will probably be the smaller operators that get pushed out first rather than the cattle boats.

 

[Wingy]

Ningaloo and Moorea are not comparable due to many factors...mainly people go to FP for the lush tropical scenery, culture, wank factor of overeager bungalows and cakes from Caramelline...Ningaloo is red dirt 1700km from a very small city and there is very little to do for the average tourist. No nightclubs, shopping, cocktail bars, very limited choice of restaurants. This influx of boats that will need a cap of numbers is just not going to happen. Ive read the PER, EMP, and submission and selection process for applicants wanting the gig and what conditions, code of practice, monitoring and financial commitment the op who have the licence to operate are under. Theyre available online if anyone wants to traek through 900 pages to get a clear understanding of how the pilot programme is being conducted. Then we can compare Moorea, Ningaloo and Tonga models with data not opinions and observations.

Western Australia particularly far north western Australia by simple geographic isolation and lack of infrastructure combined with costs of flights and accommodation alone will be a main driver in keeping the region from becoming another Moorea.

 

[HalcyonDaze]

Ningaloo and Moorea are not comparable due to many factors...mainly people go to FP for the lush tropical scenery, culture, wank factor of overeager bungalows and cakes from Caramelline...Ningaloo is red dirt 1700km from a very small city and there is very little to do for the average tourist. No nightclubs, shopping, cocktail bars, very limited choice of restaurants. This influx of boats that will need a cap of numbers is just not going to happen. Ive read the PER, EMP, and submission and selection process for applicants wanting the gig and what conditions, code of practice, monitoring and financial commitment the op who have the licence to operate are under. Theyre available online if anyone wants to traek through 900 pages to get a clear understanding of how the pilot programme is being conducted. Then we can compare Moorea, Ningaloo and Tonga models with data not opinions and observations.

Western Australia particularly far north western Australia by simple geographic isolation and lack of infrastructure combined with costs of flights and accommodation alone will be a main driver in keeping the region from becoming another Moorea.

One question that might be pertinent to the injuries being discussed - what kind of water depth and proximity to shore are the WA whale encounters occurring in? To my recollection there was only one whale encounter we had in Moorea (the heat run on our last day, so all adults and all with sex on the brain) where we could actually see bottom under the whales. I'd be hard-pressed to guess the depth, but it felt like we had over 30 and possibly 50 meters or more of water under us (judging by my recollection that the whales were several body lengths down). For all the mother and calf encounters we were in blue water with no visible bottom. That may explain the seemingly relaxed attitude towards humans; if on the other hand a mother and calf were encountered in shallow water close to shore I could see the mother being more defensive.

As a side comment, Moorea is a bit more rustic than you'd think for FP (more so now since a lot of the big hotels got clobbered by covid-19; last I heard the InterContinental on the north side was shut down for good and a few others were headed that way). The little pizza place just down the road from the house we stayed at on the west side was hopping on a Sunday night because it was about the only open takeout spot on the island. I was grumbling about opening up a Kentucky Fried Chicken there because of all the chronologically-confused roosters crowing throughout the night; my shoes and possibly my wetsuit wound up as chew toys for the local stray dogs. All that said, it's still just a 30-minute ferry ride from Papeete and thus easy for the masses to get to.

 

[Wingy]

How To Swim With A Whale - Ningaloo


I have a soft spot for Moorea, I first sailed to the Marquisas and all points in between when I was 18, im 54 now and while covid year is 9178 days long I try and swing by FP at least once a decade and Moorea would be my favourite of the societies however my focus is on the tuomotos and australs. I like to chill on Moorea and have a friend there (with 29 dogs that all seem to want to chew on me!). Ive never bothered doing any activities there but had a car hire voucher so went exploring and saw Te Moana Dolphin Centre and decided to stop in quite fired up by the idiocy of keeping dolphins in captivity in FP and ended up eating my words. When I found out the dolphins are US military mammal retirees and had a good talk to the staff and realised they were actually acting in the best interests of these animals I ended up getting in the pool with Loki while learning so much I ended up wrinkled like a prune. One couple turned up for a show and did not get in the water just watched a few jumps but I did listen to the mandatory briefing they were given. I guess what I'm trying to get across is I do believe in most of the three whale "encounter" destinations the staff really do love the animals - how ever, TBL accounting has valued that whale at X $ per season based on Y bookings because tourisms a whole lot of business that has a huge trickle down benefit to other industries...

I almost feel disgusted saying the whale is worth $XYZ to an area devoid of much other income potential and factoring in barriers to other cards on the table...can we at least regulate the hell out of it and be smart enough to use willing to pay analysis to price it out of mass tourism.

Im going to say im more at ease with this use of whales than what there was just around the bay and down about 60km...Norwegian Bay whaling station. If the operator of the trial screws up (and i do have a bit of faith in this guy) then shut it down go back to the amazing moment when youre randomly diving and you think the boats moved over you because of the shadow above...and realise its a humpback sneaking up to look at you without permission

 

[Shasta_man]

Swimming with killer whales...hmmm...critters that eat white sharks...nah. I'll watch from the boat though must be an amazing experience.

 

[Wingy]

We can organise that for you too here in the badlands - no in water orca tours though, after something ate one of our tagged 4.5m great whites we can only look up the food chain for a loveable likely sea panda to blame. The predations are very graphic - certainly not your everyday day cruise. The only problem is there's about 2200km between your whale shark and humpback destination and these guys and bigger stuff.