Costa Rica bans Shark/Whale swimming

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Kriterian

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I just saw this on CNN's site earlier today and thought it was interesting:

"Costa Rican officials are prohibiting people from swimming with dolphins or whales, shutting down a growing tourism industry that has been criticized, an environmental group said Thursday.
The new regulations were published and became law July 28, but they weren't brought to the public's attention until Thursday by the environmental group PROMAR.

The group proposed the new regulations to the Costa Rican government.

Under the new rules, not even researchers will be allowed to swim with dolphins or whales and the animals won't be allowed to be held in captivity."
 
My gut feeling is good move, Costa Rica. They seem to be well ahead of us in the environmental arena.

But then I consider a conversation last night with a former student of mine. She and her husband told me about the day their autistic child "swam" with dolphins and how the dolphins varied from the training script to accommodate some erratic behavior on the child's part.

I also think of my time down in Magdalena Bay with the gray whales in their calving grounds. I was determined NOT to touch one of the whales while I worked down there. However it was so blatantly obvious that they were soliciting contact that I gave in after a few weeks.

However, with most people it is probably a good idea not to allow this.

Dr. Bill
 
I was not aware that *appropriate* interactions were a bad thing. I am not to current on the issue, but I thought that the laws in the US, the Bahamas, the DR, etc., where there are predictable interactions in the wild were pretty strict: No touch, snorkel only on specific excursions, limits on boat distance, etc. (not including the medical/psychological stuff with autistic and other persons).

Is this considered generally bad?
 
While this could be good, given how poorly so many of these regulations and laws are written and implemented it could ultimately have disastrous long-term consequences. Costa Rica has been able to advance many good, incremental, and worthwhile environmental improvements over the past few years only because of the booming economy due in no small part to tourism. Now, if the regulations are implemented without some common sense (which unfortunately isn’t too common in these cases) I can see some ugly situations that could turn off a lot of divers and tourists. For example who will determine what is considered swimming with dolphins – is it within 100’, 500’, or will all dive operations be halted when dolphin have been reported in the area of a dive site? If it weren’t for the close financial ties PROMAR has with the World Wildlife Fund, I probably wouldn’t be so skeptical. They are not known for seeing beyond their immediate cause and have been known to kill the golden goose that pays for sound environmental policies more than once.
 

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