One of the missions of the association is to ensure compliance with the applicable rules of whale watching and to raise awareness among all the different sea users of the distances to keep to avoid disturbing whales and to modify their natural behavior.
Indeed, humpback whales come in Polynesian waters to breed and to calve. For more than five months, they don’t feed and any disturbance require them to move, and generally to move offshore. This represents a considerable and unnecessary loss of energy, and exposes them to their predators.
In the framework of a study led last year, the founder of the association, Agnes Benet, showed that there are whales sightings from 6am to 6pm, in Tahiti and in Moorea.
The monitoring and the awareness raising work of the association is essential to ensure an understanding of and a respect for the minimum distances of 100 metres to observe whales.
