Tourism and Orcas
By Alonso I. Rodríguez de la Parra, explorer and documentarian
"I invite you to join and be part of a campaign of awareness and deep connection with this magnificent animal. Not only idolizing it, but also seeing how to safeguard its safety and well-being, finding a way to do tourism so that more people connect with this species in a way that's healthy for both orcas and humans." — Alonso I. Rodríguez de la Parra, explorer and documentarian
La Paz, La Ventana, and Los Cabos used to be places of serenity and calm. Having encounters with marine animals is a great gift of nature. Mistakenly named "the aquarium of the world," Jacques Cousteau made a great error. This place is not an aquarium; it is the natural world. Nature is here to fulfill an ecosystemic and vital role for the planet that we still haven't fully understood. It is not here to become just another attraction, to be seen through the eyes of banality and the immediate gratification of our ego. If we observe nature with respect and empathy, we'll see it has a great deal to teach us. I'm not saying we should stop experiencing the natural world, for it's the healthiest thing that exists on the planet for humans. But let's do it from a place where we're aware of the interdependence we're connected to — the one from which, unfortunately, we've disconnected ourselves by calling ourselves "intelligent" and creating illusions about our needs.
The race to solve problems with immediacy hasn't let us see that, in the long run, we're creating an even greater problem. What we do to care for our children and relatives in the present is destroying their future.
Marine safaris grow in staggering proportions year after year. So much so that they are already an important source of income for locals and for the North American, South American, European, and Asian immigrants who come to settle — not always legitimately — on Mexican lands in Baja California Sur, drawn by the business opportunity that our coasts' abundance of biodiversity represents for the chance to earn a good income and work in the most beautiful place on the planet: the ocean. There are many people who are conscious and try to give an honest service, worthy of the place where they live and of the inhabitants with whom they share their space in these activities. By inhabitants, I mean the marine species. But there are many more who see this as a mere business, and any opportunity to please clients is fair game to earn a little more tip, without realizing they are disrespecting the very activity that sustains their days. To me, this is the lowest way of showing you've lost your dignity: when you don't care for what feeds you. We humans could live in a way that exalts nature and makes it shine, but we've decided to become parasites that only take from nature without giving anything in return.
I'm writing this text because I'm certain that marine safaris and going out to know the natural world are the most effective way to remember the importance of caring for our planet. This activity has changed my life, and I'm sure it has changed that of millions. But things were very different when this activity wasn't mainstream and was somewhat harder to access. Nowadays, this activity has reached such fame that so-called "ecotourism" is becoming just another form of mass tourism — but now invading a very fragile and delicate ecosystem. So complex that not even with all of science have we been able to decipher how it works. But perhaps we don't need all of science, though it is very important. We can use the empathy and emotional values that, as humans, we still largely retain when we act individually. Sometimes these are lost in the collective, and it's easier to act wrongly when many are justifying it — but that doesn't make it right.
One of the animals that has brought the most fame to this activity is the orca. This animal has drawn our attention since ancient times, as it is one of the most powerful animals in nature. Not only for the strength and ability it has as an individual, but also for the skill and abilities they've developed as groups. They are animals that have gone from being killer legends to being captured in tanks to entertain humans. And keeping an animal like this in a tank is one of the greatest insults you can inflict on the planet. Seeing them in the wild is a more well-regarded attraction, but we must handle it with great caution. It's astonishing how the predator most feared by all the species of the marine kingdom doesn't see humans as competition or as its food. We've been able to get in the water with them and observe behaviors — even invitations from them — as they offer us food or invite us to play with the prey they've hunted. Without a doubt, witnessing a spectacle like this, and seeing that an animal as imposing as an orca shows us a certain degree of respect and doesn't tear us to shreds when we enter the water with them, has impacted us in an incredible way. So incredible that being in their presence in the water provokes in us a euphoria and a feeling that, if seen under brain-measuring instruments, would light up all our senses.
And although in Mexico many say it's forbidden to swim with these and other animals, there are many gray areas in the law. Orcas are cetaceans belonging to the family of the odontocetes… the so-called "toothed whales." There are many ways to justify and evade the law, not to mention that our system for enforcing the law is garbage. That's not the problem. The problem is the ignorance about the species. The problem is that we don't truly know the impact we could have if this activity keeps getting out of control. The impact these animals can suffer when it's no longer just one panga that comes across them and we get in to swim and the orcas approach out of curiosity to see us too. The problem is when there are 35 pangas chasing them at high speeds from the first rays of sunlight until the sun sets and the moon comes out. That is unacceptable. When we break the natural cycle of an animal's day by chasing them for hours and hours all day without letting them feed, without letting them raise and teach their young how to survive. That's when we truly show that our intelligence is actually stupidity.
The first time I saw an orca in the wild, I was cruising in a boat with my father; we were going around Espíritu Santo Island in La Paz — I must have been between 13 and 14 years old. We were sailing through a channel at low speed when, out of nowhere, an enormous black animal with white spots approached the boat and began to swim at the bow like a dolphin — only it wasn't a dolphin, it was an animal with brutal magnetism and presence: an orca. Encountering this animal without even looking for it was the most wonderful encounter I've ever had. Nowadays it seems we go out to sea just to look for them, and when we don't find them we can come back disappointed. Friends, I want to tell you that going out to know the sea isn't about that. In its calm and solitude, the sea is the best teacher, and when it gifts us natural spectacles like seeing its inhabitants, it is what it is… a gift.
We still have a great deal to understand about these animals. We know very little about them. We know families that are seen regularly and that we even call residents of the area. We know that many others are only passing through. We know that, genetically, many have no direct connection, and that among them there are groups with different cultures, different hunting techniques, different ways of treating adults and young. Orcas are such astonishing animals that from family to family they are wildly different. We know that the world's populations of this animal could disappear by 2050 due to heavy metals and other pollutants in the water. And that's only if we humans don't destroy their habitat first.
We've idolized this animal to such a degree that seeing it in the wild is the greatest dream of so many. But what if we changed that dream of merely seeing it for the dream of conserving them for as long as possible during our existence on the planet? Let's not only idolize them, but truly care about this species.
Orcas are already famous. I can dare to say that we all know they exist and we all want to see them. But how many of us truly want to know them? How many of us truly care about them? How many of us are willing to step out of ignorance and not just exploit the economic opportunity this animal represents, but truly learn what its role in the ecosystem is — to reveal, through scientific studies and through observation, the true lessons this ancestral animal carries in its very existence, so that we can become a better society?
The human being is a species that lives on a plane very different from other animals — or at least that's how we can perceive it. And precisely for that reason we've become distracted and don't know our true role as a species on the planet. There are keystone species whose mere existence, we know, allows everything else to exist. Are we here to destroy it all, or are we still in time to be a keystone species for our planet? Will we lead it to destruction, or will we lead it to the beauty of life?
With that said, I'd like to lay out one of the commitments I have with Mares de México: to protect biodiversity at all costs. I invite you to join and be part of a campaign of awareness and deep connection with this magnificent animal. Not only idolizing it, but also seeing how to safeguard its safety and well-being, finding a way to do tourism so that more people connect with this species in a way that's healthy for both orcas and humans.
This campaign will begin by studying these animals in depth, scientifically, and — with empathy and sensitivity — sharing with coastal communities, service providers, and, with great emphasis, conveying to tourists that this activity must be carried out with respect and love for nature. There are people with great hearts and organizations with great determination who are already studying these animals, who day by day convey the beauty of caring for them and teach young people and children the importance of respecting the natural world.
I invite you to make a donation so that, together, we can join in being regenerative and recover our dignity within the ecosystemic roles. Together, we can be the humans this planet deserves.
At the following link you can watch the video of the situation that happened last year:
"I invite you to join and be part of a campaign of awareness and deep connection with this magnificent animal. Not only idolizing it, but also seeing how to safeguard its safety and well-being, finding a way to do tourism so that more people connect with this species in a way that's healthy for both orcas and humans." — Alonso I. Rodríguez de la Parra
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