Beyond Whale Watching in Madagascar…

En ligne le 23 mai 2011 | 64 commentaires

On the eastern coast of Madagascar we can find 222Km2 of coast belonging to Ste Marie Island. This island is known, apart from its great pirates’ stories, because more than 10 years ago it started to develop its economy, based on whale watching activities. Now locals are sure that their island attracts more than 5 000 visitors per year from all around the world thanks to the humpback whale season, from June to September. Now the economy of this island is highly related to the conservation of humpback whales. Ste Marie is now an example of sustainable development for the rest of Madagascar.

In 2009 a non-profit organization, founded in Madagascar, called CetaMada follow up the research program on these whales. More than 12 hotels in Ste Marie and over 5 in other operators from the western, southern and northern coasts of Madagascar, as well as an operator from Mayotte, have joined the initiative for responsible whale watching and promotion of conservation activities towards marine mammals in the Indian Ocean. Each hotel agrees their vessels is used as platform to collect scientific data and to promote awareness among tourists, local schools and to general public. The data taken from these boats are widely used in scientific research to study the diversity of marine mammal, abundance, species distribution, behavioural patterns, bioacoustics and genetics, among others. Thanks to our key partners we can guide more than 30 national and international volunteers each season towards the activities for research and conservation of marine mammals in the region. A photo identification database is available on line (free access), which can allow students, tourist or scientific institutes, identify humpback whales thanks to pictures taken to their flukes. Furthermore, a similar database is on the way for sound files (whale’s songs) thanks to CetaMada’s last 4 years of bioacoustics studies in cooperation with the acoustics departments from the University of Paris (France) and the University of South Hampton (UK).

A total of 11 species have been reported from our observations. These species include two species of baleen whales or baleen, humpback whale (Megaptera novaeangliae) and right whales (Eubalaena australis), eight species of odontocetes or toothed whales: the bottlenose dolphin (Tursiops sp), Stenella (Stenella sp), Pseudorque (Pseudorca crassidens), Mesoplodon (Mesoplodon sp) Mesoplodon Longman (Indopacetus pacificus), dolphin of Electra (Peponocephala electra) Cuvier’s beaked whale (Ziphius cavirostris), species of Delphinidae, finned pilot whales (Globicephala macrorhyncus). The results of aerial surveys have revealed a possible observation of dugong (Dugong dugon).

The idea was born in Ste Marie, nevertheless, now it has expand to the big island of Madagascar, in areas such as Ifaty, Toliara, Salary Bay, Nosy Be, Maroantsetra, Fort Douphin, Diego Suarez, among the main ones. Thanks to the continuous work of CetaMada now more partners can join the team for sustainability whale watching practices around the coast of Madagascar. Such display of observation platforms (boats) fully equipped (with research and safety material), monitored daily during the whole season by volunteers and centralized in a unique database won’t be possible otherwise.

Starting this season 2011 the vessels will wear the Blue Flag, an international certification recognized by UN and IUCN, showing that we are compromised with the work we do. We would like many boat operators in the area to follow this example and practice the responsible protocols for marine mammals observation, at the same time that they help understand scientist the world of marine mammals and the interaction between them and us. Also, for 2011, CetaMada is looking forward to start the National Marine Mammals Stranding Network and to keep the social and environmental initiatives in the upcoming years, including the divulgation of the marine mammals approach guidelines, also found in our website.

CETAMADA’s ACTION PLAN: 2011 – 2020.-

The following table resumes the objectives per topic and per type of project. For the year 2009, 2010 and 2011 we have already implemented the following:

I. Social Development	I.i Socio-economic	I.i.a Artisan
		I.i.b Skippers
		I.i.c Teachers
		I.i.d Whale-Watching Operators and local authorities
	I.ii. Socio-cultural	I.ii.a Local schools
		I.ii.b Volunteers program
		I.ii.c Media and press
		I.ii.d Information centre
II. Science	II.i Characterization of the humpback whale population (Number of humpback whales, structure, behaviour)	II.i.a Aerial survey
		II.i.b Boat based survey
		II.i.c Land based survey
		II.i.d Data analysis
	II.ii Acoustics	II.ii.a Passive acoustic
		II.ii.b Active acoustics
		II.ii.c Data management

For the second part of the activities Cétamada plans to start a tagging project (the first one in Madagascar), to build a research centre and implement a Geographical Information System (GIS). While developing these topics the projects from previous year will keep on going. For the upcoming years there is also a plan to do a small museum and research centre in Ste Marie Island.

III. Science and Management	III.iii Tagging	III.iii.a Tags
		III.iii.b Field research
		III.iii.c Data management
	III.iv Environmental lab	III.iii.a Water quality
		III.iii.b Tissues analysis
		III.iii.c Stranding Network and Necropsis
	III.v Management	III.iii.a GIS lab and Photo ID analysis
		III.iii.b Socio-economic study