Technological advancement and sustainability of whale-watching and maritime transport in the Canary Islands: products to optimize the detection and observation of cetaceans with implications for their conservation.

The Canary Islands are a globally significant destination due to the abundance of cetaceans in their waters, making whale-watching a major economic activity that generates over €25 million in the archipelago. However, the overcrowding of this activity poses conservation challenges for these protected species and reduces the quality of the tourism product. Another major conservation problem in an area so rich in large mammals is the high density of maritime traffic between the islands, which means that the Canary Islands are among the places in the world with the highest number of cetacean strandings showing signs of collision, partly due to the limited preventive measures currently in place. Therefore, the project has two main objectives: i) to optimize cetacean detection using passive acoustic methods and software applications that can alert authorities to their presence, thus benefiting whale-watching and collision prevention; ii) to assess the impact of the activity on cetaceans and their habitat. iii) diversify the whale-watching product in the Canary Islands through strategies aimed at observing cetaceans from the coast.

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ULL Team

• Patricia Arranz Alonso
• Natacha Aguilar de Soto