Experts are calling for stricter limits on numbers of those flocking to Baja California Sur to swim with the animals in the wild. But some local tour operators are not convinced
Swimming with orcas in Mexico falls into a legal grey area as it exploits loopholes in two Mexican laws that protect endangered marine wildlife. This has become particularly problematic in the past five years since selfies with the whales on social media have led to an increase in the number of people wanting to try the activity.
“We thought it was a great thing at the beginning but it has become kind of a nightmare,” says Evans Baudin, the owner of Cabo Shark Experience who estimates he has taken 1,500 people to swim with orcas over the past nine years. “It’s completely out of control. Since there are no authorities or rules, anyone can do whatever they want.”
Local fishing boats, some without insurance or the proper licences, are competing with the bigger foreign-owned companies based in the nearby cities of Cabo San Lucas or La Paz. Some of these companies are guaranteeing tourists the chance to swim with orcas and are pulling out all the stops to keep that promise.
Whoever tourists book with, the result is the same: increasing numbers of people are swimming or freediving with the whales, meaning dozens of boats are zooming around the animals. This is especially problematic in May and June, the busiest months for orca swimming trips.
Georgina Saad, a marine biologist who studied at Autonomous University of Baja California Sur, is worried about where all this may lead. Although no wild orca has ever killed or attacked a human, she says: “They are wild animals. If we don’t give them distance and space, they may, like any animal, defend themselves.”
The constant influx of boats and swimmers may also affect the orcas’ wellbeing. The pods in Baja are usually females with babies and are often feeding on mobula rays, sharks, dolphins, turtles or whales while people are in the water with them. They hunt using sonar to find their prey, and the noise from the motors can disrupt the whales’ ability to capture food.
Erick Higuera, a marine biologist and documentary film-maker based in La Paz, says that no one is regulating the sudden increase in swimming with orcas, which took off in 2019 after a few Instagram posts went viral. “It brings in a lot of money for communities and no one wants to stop.”
Now, however, a proposed plan aims to change all that.
A group of experts, including Saad, Higuera and Baudin, have put forward recommendations for a species management plan for orcas in La Ventana Bay, where most of the swimming happens. To do that, they incorporated information from 44 people interviewed locally. Saad expects the plan to be approved by the Mexican government this summer.
The proposed plan for orcas would be the first species management plan in Mexico based partly on the animals’ behaviour – if they exhibit distress they must be left alone – not just a quota on the number of people or boats in an area.
Tourists have flocked to Baja for decades to swim with whale sharks and to watch grey and humpback whales. The difference is that these activities are strictly regulated with government-issued permits and firm guidelines – but the activity of swimming with orcas has slipped through the regulatory net. This is partly because existing laws do not specifically ban swimming with toothed whales and partly because they rely on having species management plans.
