Best Practices For Observing Marine Wildlife
Many divers top off a trip to the Southern Red Sea by watching a rotund dugong snuffle through seagrass meadows in about 25 feet (7.6 meters) of water. Others might snorkel beside a bus-sized juvenile whale shark trolling the surface of rolling blue waters before leaving Australia’s Ningaloo Reef.
These encounters can be profound, even life-changing experiences for divers. Local economies around the globe benefit from marine megafauna tourism, which provides opportunities to educate people about wildlife and the environment.
But unless done right, these encounters can be stressful for the animals. Wild creatures spend a lot of time and energy finding food, avoiding predators, and otherwise surviving. Human interference can make them less successful in those endeavors.
Hordes of divers or snorkelers, for example, can interfere with resting and feeding by dolphins and whales, said Rupert Ormond, a researcher at Heriot-Watt University in Scotland. Another study showed that some animals in Baja’s Gulf of California perceive people in the water as potential predators, causing stress and reducing their food intake. Whale sharks sometimes stop feeding around tourists.
There is no need to forgo these incredible experiences. Following simple best practices protects animals and the humans watching them.
General Best Practices
Most tourism happens where animals gather in large numbers at predictable times, and an overall best practice is to put protections in place before the crowds arrive, said Rachel Graham, executive director of MarAlliance, a marine wildlife science and conservation organization.
“Anyone who discovers something like this needs to work early on to either protect the species or the area — or both.”
Enforcement is key, she added. “Tons of places have developed guidelines, but often they are not tied to any kind of fine, so there is only peer pressure to make operators adhere to them.”
Operators may sometimes ignore or bend guidelines when pressured by customers wanting the perfect Instagram shot. Visitors can instead encourage guides to follow good practices.
“Look for local operators, and give them positive feedback for having good information and supporting responsible tourism,” Graham said. Online reviews and comments can show whether a business follows good practices. “When I work with tour operators, it can be very powerful to point out when people say things like, ’They had us touch it, and to be honest I didn’t feel good about it.’”
Not touching the animals is also an overall best practice. “The onus is on the visitor not to demand to touch or hold these animals, even if an operator lets you,” Graham said. “If guides think visitors have that expectation, they will provide it, which can lead to an unhappy end, perhaps a bite, for the visitor or harm to the wildlife. Just because you have the incredible privilege of being so close to marine wildlife doesn’t give you the right to touch them. You wouldn’t reach out and touch a stranger.”
The following are some best practices specific to certain animals and locations.
Spinner Dolphins
Named for their habit of leaping into the air and spinning multiple times, spinner dolphins feed at night on small fish, shrimp, and squid at 650 to 1,000 feet (198 to 305 m) deep and then rest during the day near shore. Frequent disturbance of that rest can sap their energy and make it harder for them to feed, avoid predators, and reproduce.
Best practices include boats approaching dolphins from the side, leaving space between boats so the animals can swim away, and not using boats to chase or herd. Snorkelers and divers should avoid mother and calf pairs, keep noise to a minimum, and not swim after the dolphins.
“As a general rule, keep your distance unless they approach you, which if you position yourself appropriately they often will,” Ormond said. “A related issue is harassment by boats driving directly at or too close to dolphin groups to get a good view. Dolphins, especially younger ones, can be injured by bows and props.”
Spinner dolphin outings are popular in Hawai‘i, the Red Sea, and Mozambique. A study in Mozambique’s Ponta do Ouro Partial Marine Reserve recommended that outings avoid certain times and areas, boats observe speed restrictions, and staff attend required training programs.
Tiburones ballena
Whale sharks gather in large groups at predictable fish spawning events and plankton upwellings to filter feed on tiny plankton at the surface, making them attractive targets for tourism.
Operators in Oslob, Philippines, started using food to attract them more than 12 years ago, creating a tourism boom. A recent study found that whale sharks there increased their metabolic rate, or amount of energy burned, by 55%. The paper suggests operators could offset this increased energy use with a sufficient amount of food.
Feeding marine life for the benefit of tourists remains controversial. There can be negative consequences for the animals (and ultimately for tourism), but shark tourism provides an alternative to shark fishing.
“Most countries where people visit sharks have an active shark fishery,” Graham said. “To move away from that, you need to make tourism lucrative, which requires predictability. Many places don’t have enough sharks to provide predictability and have to maintain it by feeding. Having protections in place can be a way to change people’s attitudes toward sharks.”
Best practices, such as prohibiting hand-feeding animals, are critical. Sooner or later a shark will bite the hand that feeds it — a caveat not applicable to plankton-eating whale sharks, but still common sense. Other best practices include limiting the number of boats and the time people spend interacting with the sharks and remaining beside and not in front of the animals.
Visitors can swim or dive with whale sharks seasonally at Isla Holbox and Isla Mujeres in Mexico, Australia’s Ningaloo Reef, Cenderawasih Bay in Indonesia, the Gulf of California, and the Galápagos Islands.
Dugongs and Manatees
Dugongs and their manatee cousins are believed to have descended from land animals and are more closely related to elephants than other marine mammals. Also known as sea cows, they eat more than 60 pounds (27 kilograms) of seagrass a day and, thanks to good memories, remember and return to specific feeding areas.
Dugong tourism in the Red Sea occurs mainly around Marsa Alam on the Egyptian coast. The nonprofit Red Sea Project promotes best practices for operators and tourists, including staying at least 10 feet (3 m) away, avoiding flash photography and underwater motorized propulsion, and not moving sand or sitting on seagrass. Sea cows move slowly and surface to breathe, making them vulnerable to being struck by boats, so reducing speed is a basic best boating practice around feeding grounds.
Dugongs live exclusively in salt water, while manatees also swim in fresh water. Those in Florida seek out warm springs during winter, including around Crystal River. Multiple operators offer manatee tours that include snorkeling (scuba bubbles can drive away the animals). State and federal laws protect manatees in Florida, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service encourages passive observation from a distance at the surface.
Other places to see dugongs include Australia’s Great Barrier Reef; Coron, Philippines; Palau, Micronesia; and Raja Ampat, Indonesia.
Manta Rays
These filter feeders gather to feed on zooplankton during its seasonal movement and upwellings, thus spawning tourism operations.
Kona on the big island of Hawai‘i is popular for watching manta rays feed at night. Tour guides use lights to attract plankton, which attracts mantas. A best practice is for snorkelers to hold lighted flotation devices and watch from above while divers sit around a light box on the sandy bottom and watch from below.
“Light on the bottom and top creates a fantastic sight,” said Martina Wing, co-owner of Manta Ray Advocates and a board member for the nonprofit Hawaii Ocean Watch. The method protects the animals and improves the experience for people because everyone can see, and no one gets jostled about. Boats remain a short distance away and turn off their motors.
“All these years, it was unspoken that you don’t injure the animal that makes us a living,” Wing said. “That means no lights on the boat so mantas are not drawn to it and risk getting injured.” But the unspoken agreement fell apart somewhere along the way, and a lengthy process to establish official rules has bogged down. So some operators follow best practices, but others do not.
“Say 10 boats come to the same site and one said, ‘My customers are important,’” Wing said. “They park 100 meters (328 feet) away, turn on their lights, and here comes a manta ray. The people on that boat see the ray but also may injure it.”
Hawaii Ocean Watch reports that 25% of the mantas they see regularly have injuries caused by humans. Besides boats, injuries can result from touching, which can damage the protective coating on a manta’s skin, leaving it more vulnerable to infection. People in the water have been injured as well.
Daytime manta watching is popular in the Maldives, Palau, Indonesia, and Western Australia around cleaning stations — reef areas where cleaner fish remove parasites and debris from other fish. This practice feeds the cleaner and protects the clean mantas from disease. Safe boating practices also apply at these locations.
Divers should settle gently onto the sandy seafloor a safe distance from the coral bommies so they don’t harm living coral or impede a manta’s path to the cleaner fish. Chasing after a ray for a photo is likely to scare them away, earning aggressive photographers the ire of fellow divers and forcing rays to seek their hygiene elsewhere.
“It is incredible to be in the presence of a manta ray,” Wing said. “It can be a core experience of your life. But it has to be done sustainably, or the environment and animals suffer.”
Humpback Whales
The International Fund for Animal Welfare reported in 2020 that 13 million people watching whales in 119 countries and territories generated $2.1 billion. That significant boost to conservation efforts and local communities provides a reason to establish the right guidelines.
Despite their massive size, these whales feed on tiny krill and small schooling fishes, straining their prey from ocean water with baleen plates. Males are famous for their complex, long songs, with males in a population singing the same song.
Often found near shore and at the surface, humpbacks are targeted by a robust topside-only U.S. whale-watching industry along the Atlantic coast and in California, Alaska, and Hawai‘i. Moʻorea in French Polynesia, Tonga, and the Silver Bank in the Dominican Republic are among the most predictably productive for legal underwater humpback encounters. The whales’ iconic, photo-worthy behaviors include blowing (or exhaling), breaching, fluking, and tail and flipper slapping.
Being struck by boats, including those carrying tourists, is a significant threat to these animals. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has guidelines for choosing responsible operators, and they award a Whale Sense designation to those who follow certain practices. Whale safety guidelines may be less stringent in other parts of the world, but operators are learning to self-police, which insulates them from mandated oversight and benefits the whales.
There are plenty of resources for divers to educate themselves about appropriate, respectful, and benign encounters with marine animals. We owe it to our fellow divers and these creatures to ensure that we are prepared to avoid causing harm.
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See more close marine encounters in a bonus photo gallery.
© Alert Diver – Q2 2025