CLAIRE KEETON, Hermanus | Saturday
THE high number of whales close to the South African shoreline is attracting a growing number of tourists, with whale-watching threatening to overtake game-watching as a holiday activity.
“We have counted 182 calves this season (roughly July to November),” said Peter Best, head of the World Wildlife Fund’s whale project here.
This contrasts to the North Atlantic “where the number of calves varies from about two up to 25”, according to Best.
A high percentage of the world’s estimated 8 000 southern rights visit South African waters and their social behaviour makes for exceptional whale watching.
“They are extremely obliging, even approaching boats. Our viewing for the right whales is unique,” said Best, from Pretoria University’s Mammal Research Institute.
A right whale, blowing and surfacing, was among three species viewed from an operator’s boat by AFP, off Plettenberg Bay about 500 kilometres east of Cape Town.
Another time a large fin — in a bay known for great white sharks — then a whale broke the surface within arm’s reach of two crew aboard a five-metre catamaran.
Whales were also seen breaching — lifting their entire bodies out of the sea in massive leaps — on a windy day in Walker Bay off Hermanus, 100 kilometres southeast of Cape Town, where up to 170 whales congregate in the bay.
Best, using aerial surveys, estimates that the southern right population has been increasing at its optimal rate of about seven percent annually off South Africa for the past 30 years.
“Our population is doing very well,” he says.
Other species commonly found off South Africa are humpbacks and brydes, with fewer sightings of orca and minke whales.
“South Africa’s major pull is the diversity of species,” said Greg Vogt, head of Whale Route.
South Africa’s Whale Route monitors the movements of whales and thousands of dolphins.
Vogt said the “whale season” is getting longer, with some whales staying past breeding season into the southern summer. “We can see whales most of the year,” he said.
Vogt believes South Africa’s mid-year sardine run that attracts masses of marine life has the potential to be one of the world’s leading marine attractions.
“The sardine run could be equated with the wildebeest run through the Serengeti” game reserve in Tanzania, Vogt observed.
Tourist records for one month recently indicated that more tourists are visiting South Africa for the whale-watching than for game parks.
“We are up every month from the same month the previous year,” said Andrew Bell, a skipper for Plett whale watching operators Ocean Blue.
The International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) Whale Watching 2001 report estimates that globally it is now a billion-dollar industry attracting more than 10 million people.
The report states that 87 countries offer whale-watching — with South Africa the fifth fastest growing destination — and that direct spending on tickets has increased roughly four times since 1991 to $300-million by 2001.
In South Africa 15 operators have been licensed to approach up to 50 metres of whales. “From the outset the government allocated each permit a specified area of operation to ensure that there is no competition on the water,” Best observed.
These close-encounter trips, with small groups, have soared in popularity since boat-based watching was allowed in 1998.
Overseas tourists fill most boats as the tickets, about R250 each, are expensive, but this pattern is starting to shift.
“We have lots of German, Dutch and French tourists but this year we had some Zimbabweans and more South Africans than last year,” said Gail Alcock, of Southern Right Charters in Hermanus. – AFP