The Controversy of Swimming with Humpback Whales

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How close are you willing to get to see a humpback whale? We've

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seen whale watching boats and people get pretty close even though there are

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regulations and distances to see a whale. But

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how close are you willing to get? Are you willing to get in the water with

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a humpback whale? And then what would you be comfortable in

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terms of a distance of a humpback whale? And then if I tell you,

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you can't really control the distance you have from a humpback whale because

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you're floating in the water, And they're coming at

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the speed that they're coming at. And if they want to come see you, they're going to come see

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you. We're going to talk about an incident that happened with swim with whale tourism

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industry in Australia, where a

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humpback whale actually carried a guy out of the water and

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put him back in. He was OK, but it's kind of causing a

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little bit of a controversy with the swim with whale industry and

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how it changes and impacts humpback whale behavior. before and

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after the interaction. So we're gonna talk about that on today's episode of

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the How to Protect the Ocean podcast. Let's start the show. Hey

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everybody, welcome back to another exciting episode of the How to Protect the Ocean podcast.

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I'm your host, Andrew Lewin, and this is the podcast where you find out what's happening with

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the ocean, how you can speak up for the ocean, what you can do to live for a better ocean

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by taking action. And this is an episode where I want people

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to take action. I just don't know where we could take

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action. I have a feeling it starts with government, so we're gonna get into that.

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But this story came to me from Stephanie Stack, who

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is a good friend of mine, a colleague, She is in Australia

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during her PhD on whale tourism impacts

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from humans. She's

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just a great person. She's been on the podcast before talking about whales

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and her work with the Pacific Whale Foundation. Now she's doing a PhD in

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Australia. She came to me, not really came to

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me, but she posted a video. of an incident that occurred and

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her thoughts on this incident for a swim with whale outfit.

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And this company, basically what happens is you take

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this, a set of people, tourism, tourist people who

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want to go out to see some whales, instead of just being on

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a whale watching boat where you're staying, you stay on the boat and you watch

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these whales and you follow, you know, all the protocols and

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all the regulations that are around these whales, they

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get into the water. They hold on to what they call a mermaid line, which

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is essentially just a line in the water so you can hold on so you don't drift off. You're

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in the ocean, you're snorkeling, and you basically put your

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head in the water, you stay at the surface, put your head in the water, and you watch these

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whales, in this case humpback whales, swim by. And

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it's kind of like this immersive experience where you're in the water

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with the whales, and you don't really think as a tourist that the

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whales could come to see you or get as close as possible

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with you, but, it happens and in this case it happened a

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little too close people were in the water there's a video out

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i'm not going to show it on this uh on this uh episode you

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can watch it otherwise you can watch it online i'll put a link to

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the video but and i'll put the link also to the instagram

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post that uh that stephanie put up on her thoughts on it but

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essentially what happened the other day i guess over this video

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is The people were in the water, they had their faces

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in the water, and you can see they had cameras. There was a YouTube

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couple, I guess, that shared their experiences. And

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they shared their experience with this, where they were looking in the water. They

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see this humpback whale come pretty close. And I don't know what the

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normal distances are, but they're pretty close. Normally, a whale-watching vessel

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has to stay within like 300 meters or 300 meters

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away from the animals depending and if they come

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closer they have to shut their engines off and things like that. But

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this time they're in the water and this humpback whale comes close and

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it comes closer and closer and they kind of lift up in the video. The couple

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that's taking the video is lifting up their head being like, wow, look

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at this. This is really cool. Like it came so close. And as the one

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woman is turning back to her partner that

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does the video, I don't know much about them. I don't know if they're married, if

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they're related or whatever. They look back, she looks back and All

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you see in the background is one of the people that are

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in the water get lifted up by this humpback whale Probably

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about five feet out of the air and then drop back in the guy was

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okay. He was actually the guy the tour guide Part

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of the outfit part of the the company that was taking them out and

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he was fine. Thank God he was fine and The whale didn't

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look like it was harmed, they didn't talk about the whale in the

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video, but it looked okay. It didn't look like there

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was any damage from what I saw, but again, I don't know what

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that damage would be or how it was damaged, because you don't really see

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the humpback whale after, you just see it go into the water and swim away. This

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guy comes out this there's a there's a video on all I'll put the link

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like I said on the telegraph they posted a link of the after effects

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so the people after on the boat people are smiling the guy who

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was lifted out of the water is high-fiving and he's getting pretty excited

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Stephanie talked about how he was on the news and he talked about how this was so

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great and he enjoyed the experience, it was such a cool experience. Here's

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the problem in the entire incident. The incident itself

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is the human was in contact with the

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whale physically. not safe for the human, potentially

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unsafe for the humpback whale, but it's going to be a distraction to the humpback

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whale. It's going to be a disturbance to the humpback whale,

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which you're not supposed to do. And that's just more ethically than anything

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else, but it's part of the rules as well. But sometimes you can't control it.

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And I think herein lies the problem is you can't control how close

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the humpback whale comes to you or how close you can come. You can control

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how close you come, in contact with how close

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you come from the humpback whale, but not necessarily the other way

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around, as in this case. But the problem is,

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this guy's talking about how it was such a cool experience, what a lovely

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experience it was. But the thing is, is these humpback whales are

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huge. They can be dangerous, not thinking that like, not

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that they do it on purpose, they can be dangerous. There's a lot of fluke slaps,

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which is the tail. They just slap their tail on the water. You get hit in

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the head with that, you could be knocked out. There are fin

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slaps as well. So they could slap their fin, they'll come in. And sometimes that's

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a behavior to say, hey, get away from me. Other

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times, we don't really know what the behavior is. I'm not a behavioralist. But

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these can be dangerous situations for the tourists. And the

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tourists themselves are not people who understand the dangers. If

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you go out on a boat, and you just want to see whales, and

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you're like, hey, this could be a cool experience. You get in the water, and

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you see this humpback whale come close. You're like, oh, this is awesome. But

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now, what happens when you're looking up, and there's a tail or

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fluke coming up, and it's about to slap on top of your head? This

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tourist is just, unfortunately, not to say it in a bad way, is

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just ignorant of the dangers that could happen if they're not explained

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to you on the ship. Now, I don't know if the dangers and risks were

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explained to you on a ship. I don't know if they have to sign a waiver or what have you. I'm

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not too familiar with these types of behaviors. But

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Stephanie did write a paper, along with other ecologists

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and so forth, about the behavioral impacts of commercial swimming with

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whale tours on humpback whales, and in the abstract, She

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concludes that there were disturbances. So there was, let's

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just see, the number of direct changes made by the whales was

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the highest when swimmers were in the water and the whales did not resume

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undisturbed behavior after the swimmers exited the

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water. So in other words, it's not as if they continued on their way to

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the same way they were going, they had to actually change directions. They said there

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was a 50% reduction in the proportion of time that whales

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spent resting during uh... swim tours compared to

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during whale watch tours. That's what the comparison was like.

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One, is there a disturbance from the swim with whales? And then what about the comparison

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with whale watching boats where they're not in the water? So there's a

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50% reduction in the proportion of time that whale spent resting.

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Now here's the thing though. In both tour types, the

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time spent engaging in various behaviors was impacted by the distance between

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the vessel and the whales. These results support the conclusion that

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the behavior of humpback whales, and this is in Hervey Bay, was

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altered in response to swim with whale tourism. As humpback whales

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are capital breeders with limited energy

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reserves, this is the important part, reducing disturbance to

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them is of high importance for their continued population recovery

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and for the sustainability of the marine tourism industry. In

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Australia where swim with whale tourism is becoming more

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established, robust education and enforcement programs combined with

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continued monitoring of population dynamics through scientific research

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are needed to minimize impacts to the population and

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guide adaptive management strategies. In other words, this needs to

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be research, this needs to be monitored and

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the regulations need to change along with the differences that

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they see over time. So adaptive management is basically, how is the management

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going now? Okay, something's changed, we need to go

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back and revise this management or this enforcement plan or these regulations

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to ensure that it entails something completely new. And

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that can change with anything. You know, there are situations

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where there's a mother and a calf that are different than a situation where it's

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just a whale on its own, right? The mother

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is gonna be more protective when her calf is around compared to

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not having a calf around, right? So there's a lot of differences in

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going in. And I found some other, there was another one in

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2019, the effects of whale-based tourism in Vavrou, Vavrou? I

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think it's called Ntanga, Kingdom of Ntanga, behavioral responses of

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humpback whales to vessel and swimming tourism activities. And

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they found that it's

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an important calving ground for the Oceania humpback whale population,

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Vavau is, and these findings should be carefully considered

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by stakeholders in Ntanga and at the other locations where swim

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with whale opportunities are being undertaken. So basically what happened is,

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let's see, Low levels

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of compliance to the existing Tonga swim with whale regulations were documented. In

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particular, the stipulated whale resting time between interactions with

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tour operator vessels and swimmers was often not

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respected. So this is the thing. These humpback whales

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need some rest time between these interactions, and that

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wasn't actually respected, and

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it wasn't followed. So rest time seemed to be an occurrence that

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continues to come up all the time. It's an issue. They

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need to have their rest time, and it's not being monitored, it's not

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being abided by, and that's a

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big problem. It seems like others, vessel approach time,

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swimmer placement, and vessel avoidance responses were

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also recorded. Results indicate that the average diving time and

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the proportion of time spent diving in the presence of swimming activities

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increased significantly for mother and calf pairs. So

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that, you know, there are definitely changes within

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the behaviors of these humpback whales, especially mother calf,

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where resting is needed, but they have to dive further because

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they want to avoid these swim with whale outfits and these swim

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with whales instances. So here's the thing. is

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swim with whales what we need? A lot of times we look

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at it from a human perspective, like this is really cool. We

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could really get a lot of knowledge from

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being in the water with them. We can have this immersive experience, literally immersive

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experience with these whales and be able

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to connect with them and have this bond and

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energy that we have within the relationship that we develop with these whales while

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we're in the water. And then we go off and we want to protect these whales. So there could

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be an argument for the conservation of these whales by being

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in the water when these whales go by. However, is

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this right for the humpback whale? It's

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obviously affecting their behavior around it. So

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there needs to be more regulations with

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the swim with whales that happens. Now, within Queensland, this

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is where this incident with the video happened that I mentioned earlier, it

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doesn't seem as though there are specific regulations

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for swim with whales. Most

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of the regulations and rules for

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watching marine mammals is all about their

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approach and like cautionary zones, no approach

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zones. If there's certain number of boats and there's more, if there's three boats

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within the cautionary zone, then there can't be any more. So

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there's all these rules around it, like the three boat rule, when a marine

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mammal approaches a boat, what to do. when a marine mammal appears disturbed,

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what to do. Other situation where specific approach distance apply.

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So there's a lot of things happening where the one

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thing I see, a person in or entering the water, not within

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100 meters of a whale or 50 meters of a dolphin. So these

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are specific situations where these approach distances,

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the problem is there's not a lot of language around it. And if this is all I'm

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seeing, It just seems like more of

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general rules, it doesn't seem like it's specific laws

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from what I see. And I'm just opening here, I didn't have it

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open, I should have it open. I'm just opening here the... the

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interaction I had with Stephanie getting some information.

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And I asked, I said, is there a

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committee of whale watching companies to look after

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this? And they said the only example that she knows of was in Hervey Bay

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where she did her study where the whale watching fleet developed their

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own code of conduct for following the swim tours, extra

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regulations on top of a permit condition. So outside of that, it's

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really up to every operator for themselves. So there's not a

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lot of you know, talking in between. We

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see this a lot of times with operators, where there's

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not a lot of connections in terms of like, let's go

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above and beyond. And it's not necessarily because they don't want to, they

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want to bring out their tourists, they want this to be sustainable. So

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I'm not saying that these are bad operators. They just need to

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follow a little bit more rules. They need to understand, maybe have a little bit more connection with

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the scientific community, the conservation community. People like Stephanie

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who study this and just be like, hey, guys, look, I understand you

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want to do this, but there need to be a little bit more rules around it.

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You need to go above and beyond. And maybe let's talk

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to the operators at Harvey Bay, which went through

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this and went through the study. And I know a lot of times, like Stephanie was on these

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boats talking and building relationships with these people. And

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I think that's really interesting. And I said, are there regulations?

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And she said, yeah, they exist, but they need to be strengthened and enforced. The

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company that says they complained they did nothing wrong and they followed the rules. And

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what it looked like is it looked like the humpback whale approached them. So they may have been within

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the 300 meters or 100 meters in the water, but you

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know, maybe the humpback approach them. So maybe there need to be extra rules and

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regulations that need to be added to ensure that,

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hey, look, we need to do something right here. This is something that that

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needs to happen. So here's the

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call to action is what we really need to do is we

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need to get the Queensland government on board to

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say more regulations need to happen. There

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are places, if you go to the, I'll put the link where the rules are, where

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I'm looking for watching marine mammals. There are places,

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I'm gonna look for places where we can contact the government and just be

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like, send an email or send an, like, yeah, basically send an

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email or message to them and say, hey, We need to have better regulations.

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This incident cannot happen. This could have been very dangerous for the person who

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was in the water, for the number of people that were in the water. They could have

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been hurt. If an animal breaches, like a humpback whale breaches

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and lands on them, who knows what that would do to a

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person. That can't be good either way. We've seen that happen on

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videos before, always cautious. They always go viral,

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but it can be very cautionary tale. And you don't want

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to ruin sort of the regulations and

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the protections around humpback whales. Humpback whales, yes, they're

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doing better than they were back, you know, 50, 60 years ago,

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but we still need to protect them. They're long-lived species. Things that go wrong

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can really take a turn for the worst. You don't want to lose

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a generation through, you know, disrupting their

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rest times and disrupting their normal undisturbed

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behavior. by doing these types of tours just

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for our own gain. We need to make sure we protect these whales and

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we need to do better and make sure that these regulations and

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enforcements actually go through. So this is something that I want to

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make sure that we go ahead and do. And

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I would love to hear what you think. Let me know. You

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can hit me up on a comment on Spotify, where I post

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this video on this podcast. Go to YouTube, let me know what you think. But

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I'd also love to hear from you on Instagram. Just

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hit me up at howtoprotecttheocean, and I'd love to hear

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what you think from there. But that's it for today's episode. I want to thank you

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so much for joining me on this episode of the How to Protect the Ocean podcast. Have