Banderas Bay is one of the main congregation areas for Humpback Whales in the Mexican Pacific Ocean, visiting each season 500 individuals. This has led the Bay to be one of the main tourist sites for observation. This year, according to the official season of Whale watching started on December 8th, 2019 and will end on March 23, 2020, according to the notice issued in the Official Gazette of the Federation by SEMARNAT.
As always we recommend you to do whale watching activities only with the authorized vessels, which can be distinguished with the official flag.
2,272 Different Whales identified
1996-2016
Our catalog FIBB has a database with more than 7,000 records of which 2,272 are unique whales. As always, we count on the valuable contributions of our collaborators, season after season, so we can continue expanding the catalog. In fact, every year we receive over 1,500 pictures of our collaborators, whereby it is a challenge to keep the catalog updated. Thanks to the support of Happywhale´s software we are moving forward rapidly and expect to be able to update until 2017 very soon.
We thank all the collaborators of season 2018-2019: Biocean, Ecotours de México, Orca de Sayulita, Vallarta Adventures and Vallarta Natours.
Collaborations with other catalogs, nationals, and internationals like HappyWhale allow us to obtain more information regarding the distribution and general state of our whales. ¡This year we had the great surprise that at least ten of our whales have been in Russia! As was the case of FIBB-4BB293, a whale that swam 5000 miles from Banderas Bay to Kamchatka, Russia.
48 Rescued Whales
To date, the Whale Disentanglement Network (RABEN) has received 123 reports of entangled whales, from which 48 whales have been successfully released (since 2004). Only last season (2018-2019) 23 reports were attended nationwide and this starting season 2019-2020 we recently had two more cases. Banderas Bay is still the leading team with the highest number of entangled whales, 43 cases attended (2004-2019).
ECOBAC, as RABEN´s coordinator nationwide, wants to thank all members for their invaluable help with this complex labor. We hope that all the rescues during this season are safe and successful! We can do this!
The teams from Oaxaca (NOV 9th, 19), Banderas Bay (NOV 19th, 19 and DEC 10th,19) and Mazatlán (DEC 10th, 19) were not far behind and also carried out their respective practices and training. The better prepared we are, the greater the likelihood of having successful rescues!
¡THANK YOU! COCKTAIL THE CAPE
ENVIRONMENTAL EDUCATION AND “I CARE FOR THE WHALES” CAMPAIGN
First Rescued Whale this Season
This season we will greatly appreciate any contribution either donation or in kind, as the number of cases we attend is growing…
Thank you very much! We invite you to the events that we will soon have and will be publishing on our FB page. Stay-tuned 😉
Happy whale watching season 2020!