Sri Lanka wildlife tour

Planet

We promote the use of environmentally friendly and sustainable practises throughout the tour. We do however understand that Sri Lanka is a poor country which has only just started to take advantage of some of its incredible natural beauty (particularly the whale and dolphin populations). As a result some of the boats are not as clean as we would hope, but like anything they need the money in order to improve facilities and the money only comes with increased tourism and donations. We are monitoring this improvement and will be making enquiries into why improvements have not been made when we feel that they have the resources to do so.
We donate annually (depending on how many tours and how many guests we have taken to see blue whales) to the WDCS with a view to increasing knowledge and protection for cetaceans around the world. We are also involved in the development and implement of a set of regulations and guidelines which will make the whale watching whale friendly and sustainable. We also make sure that every time we go out on the water that we abide by the international whale watching guidelines and regulations. These are in place to make sure that the whale watching is safe for the whales and for us.
We also make notes of other boats we see which are in breach of basic environmentally friendly rules and report such boats to the authorities.
We also donate money to sloth bear leopard, elephant and Sinharaja conservation projects and contribute data and valuable information to their causes.

Wildlife Promise:

The wildlife is of course of the upmost importance to us on this tour and all other tours run by us. All pictures and videos which we take of wild leopards are handed over to the national park authorities as well as some of Sri Lanka’s leading wildlife researchers, for their ongoing studies. This helps to keep tabs on the individuals in the area and further understand the behaviour of the species; as the Sri Lankan leopard is still far from understood completely, every sighting is invaluable to conservation and research efforts. We also actively campaign against poaching and the illegal fur trade worldwide; we are also keen to report any abuse of the environment or wildlife that we see to the local authorities.
We strictly adhere to the international guidelines regarding whale and dolphin watching. These guidelines details the distances that boats of various sizes are allowed to the animals and how loud engines can be etc.
Where we see whale watching boats breach these rules (whether we are on that boat or not) we report the act to the boat management team as well as the local authorities. We also make our feeling known to the skipper of the boat if we are on the boat and ask him to move further away from the animals.
We also keep a record of all the marine life we see on each tour and record the environmental factors, this data is used by ourselves but also given to the researchers who work out of Mirissa. All the information collected in invaluable as the knowledge of this Indian Ocean population of blue whales is very little understood. We also donate our pictures to the researchers to aid in their photo identification studies.

People

The local community benefits from this tour purely by being employed to find the wildlife in the national parks and on our whale watching excursions. In many of the areas we visit here (including Wilpattu and Mirissa the wildlife watching industry is still in its infancy and as a result the facilities may not be up to most western standards. As a result we always look to improve the facilities and are always making suggestions and contributing to the local suppliers. This is done with a sustainable and environmentally frame of mind and we hope that within the next 10 years, Wilpattu is a popular and well run as Yala and the whale watching in Mirissa can rival that of Canada, Baja and South Africa.
Wilpattu National Park was left unprotected and closed for tourists during the conflict with the Tamil Tigers and as a result the local people lost a valuable part of their economy without any tourists visiting the park, so we aim to continually and sustainably build this industry back up in Wilpattu.
We are also working in conjunction with the Whale & Dolphin Conservation Society (WDCS) in order to make sure that the future whale watching industry is regulated and monitored. This will ensure the long term survival of whale watching here and therefore add in job security and allow for long term development of local communities which is then centred around whale watching and eco-tourism.
By using a professional zoologist and local guides, the guides get an extra perspective of the importance of monitoring the whales and understanding their behaviour. We also regularly help to educate local people by sending information packs about whales and dolphins to schools on an annual basis.