Hundreds of humpback whales seek the protection of the warm waters of the Dominican bay of Samaná every year to reproduce and give birth. It is a show that attracts tourists from all over the world between January and April. RFI spoke to environmentalists at the Dominican Republic sanctuary who are fighting to protect cetaceans in the face of tourist pressure.
“Welcome aboard our ship.” Wearing her blue cap, Canadian Kim Beddall is the veteran of whale watching guides. It’s 9 o’clock in the morning in Saman Bayá, north of the Dominican Republic. And like every day between January and March for 30 years, Kim has directed ‘Pura Mia’, his boat, out to sea, with around fifty tourists on board, to go meet the humpback whales.
Cetaceans travel 7,000 kilometers from Canadian shores to breed or give birth here in the warm waters of the Caribbean.
Suddenly, a plume of air and seawater rises, and then the 14-meter body of a leaping whale. Another hits the surface of the water with its fin and swims to within a few meters of the boat.
After years of hunting, the whales were on the brink of extinction. But with the ban on hunting in the 1960s, ratified by most countries in the world, the humpback whale population has recovered. It is estimated that there are around 15,000 in the North Atlantic today. Hundreds of them come every year to the bay of Samaná.
At the bow of the ship, a photographer with a long lens captures images of the tails of humpback whales. As part of a whale conservation program, tour boats perform a cetacean data collection function. Their behavior, couples, mothers with their babies, single whales are observed, and each one of them is identified with the unique color of its tail. For two decades, the biologist Liliana Betancourt, from the environmental NGO CEBSE, has been compiling this data. “Each whale tail is unique, it is like our fingerprint. We have a catalog with 1871 photo-identified individuals. And on top of that, we looked at the females and the babies one by one.”
Since 1999, the date on which the scientific monitoring of the whales in the Samaná Bay began, the scientist has noticed that the area remains a breeding sanctuary.
►Also read and listen: “The mysterious songs of humpback whales intrigue scientists in Santo Domingo”
However, the lives of the whales still hold several mysteries. The stay of the whales in the Bay lasts several days, but it is not known exactly how long it lasts. On the other hand, little is known about how the whales endure several days in the Bay without feeding.
They study the songs of whales
Ayer, Kim he submerged an underwater microphone in the sea and connected it to the ship’s speakers. The sounds moved the ship’s passengers to tears as they discovered the melodies of the cetaceans. This male whose song we now hear, was baptized Harry Potter. He was identified in the 70s. And he was photographed again in 2017 and in March of this year in Saman Bay.on.
¿Corners, gsmiles or laughs? The acoustics of humpback whales fascinate scientists. And since the 1970s, scientific hypotheses have changed.
“Because it’s the males that sing during the breeding season, biologists thought it was a way to attract females,” recalls Olivier Adam, a biologist at the Sorbonne University in Paris who studies mammal songs. marines.
“But in 1986, a researcher put a speaker in the water to broadcast songs. The females did not react and others fled. ANDn the 2000s, we realized that there were many interactions between males. So we assume that these songs allow the males to define their territory, identify themselves or give information about their power to the females”, details the biologist, specialist in acoustics.
After a careful study of the recordings of the songs, scientists have realized that humpback whales “produce vocalizations with a regular frequency, with phrases of 4, 5 or 6 vocalizations in a loop for 15 or 20 minutes. We also notice that there are sound territories. In the same oceans, whales have similar songs. But there are many unanswered questions, even today in 2023. The first is individual identification. Normally, vocalization makes it possible to identify a speaker, like my current voice, which identifies me. For humpback whales, we were not able to distinguish the differences in voices”, admits Olivier Adam, interviewed by RFI in the framework of the annual congress on whales, which took place in Santo Domingo, in 2023.
Back on Kim Beddall’s boat, we observe a whale with an injured fin. “When we see whales with scars, and with used sensory nodules, they are generally males, fighting to keep up with the females as we see right now,” explains naturalist Melina Medeiros, who accompanies Kim Beddall on her boat.
“Their scars come from the fighting, imagine, 40 tons colliding… causing injuries. There are injuries also caused by ships colliding with whales. We see deformed dorsal parts. We also see whales entwined with fish fillets and wounds, especially the calves”, laments Medeiros.
The rules for not disturbing the whales
Every year, tourists marvel at the presence of the majestic cetaceans. The creation in 1986 of the Samaná Bay Marine Mammal Sanctuary has limited the impact of human activities in the area. The number of permits for tourist boats authorized to circulate in the breeding area has been limited to 43. “Here in the breeding area, only 3 tourist boats are allowed to observe around the whales, 50 meters away, and 80 meters in the presence of mothers and calves.”
Protecting the whale breeding sanctuary is, however, a daily struggle for environmentalists. Samuel King, a member of the NGO Center for the Conservation and Eco-Development of the Samaná Bay (CEBSE), opens the doors of a small educational museum. A space dedicated to creating ecological and historical awareness about the richness of local marine biodiversity. “We are trying to change the use of nets used by fishermen. We propose no-take zones to fishermen,” says King.
Cruise Terminal Project
Today, Samaná arouses the interest of tourism companies. In the bay, some signs indicate the construction of a cruise terminal. Last July, the Dominican president laid the first stone for a project that will have the capacity to attract half a million tourists a year. In the port of Santa Bárbara de Samaná, ecotourism represents an income opportunity. From the NGO CEBSE, Samuel King insists on the need to reconcile economic development and protection of the marine sanctuary. “Many people who depend on tourism see this project as a tourism boom. But they don’t see all the environmental damage that is going to be done in the area: the dredging, the construction, the movement of sediments. We have a midpoint: we are not opposed to economic development, but we try to make it as sustainable as possible”, warns the NGO.
Kim Beddall believes that, to guarantee the tranquility of cetaceans, the maximum number of boats that whales can hold in their breeding area should be defined. “There are companies that aspire to attract 500,000 tourists a year. This means 130 or 150 cruises during the breeding period of the whales in the bay. The entrance channel to the Bay passes through the concentration of whales. Generally, cruise ships and whale breeding areas are not a good combination”, warns the Canadian.
In addition to fishing nets, noise from ships and radar are a threat to cetaceans. According to her, mass tourism, a model that the Dominican Republic is committed to, is incompatible with the tranquility of the whales. “What do people want? Cruises or whale watching?” Beddall asks.
That will be the challenge of the coming years: to preserve a calm environment so that the giants of the sea continue swimming and singing in the crystalline waters of Samaná. And prevent human activities from once again putting the existence of whales at risk.
Audio report: Raphaël Moran
Technical realization: Fabien Hilly.
