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Costa Rica Becoming Top "Whale Tourism" Destination
(Infocom) — Costa Rica is taking advantage of multiple resources to attract tourists. One of them is whale-watching on the Pacific coast, as the country’s waters are recognized worldwide for the ease with which these majestic mammals can be seen there.

The friendly use of whales as a tourism attraction is an activity that’s rapidly expanding in most Latin American countries, but Costa Rica is a special case.

Humpback whales are the species that visits Costa Rica’s coasts from August-October (Southern Hemisphere whales) and from December-April (Northern Hemisphere whales). Drake Bay and the Caño Island National Park in the southern Pacific coast are natural mating sites for these whales between November and March.

According to the Costa Rican Tourism Institute (ICT), whale-watching has grown by 74 percent during the past 10 years — a considerable development when compared to other whale tourism hotspots in Latin America such as Chile, Ecuador, Colombia and Argentina, where this kind of activity has grown bewteen 15 percent and 19 percent.

Whale-watching tours currently benefit 91 communities in 18 Latin American countries. The region has quadrupled its capacity for this type of entertainment in the past 15 years, earning $280 million, according to data from the International Fund for Animal Welfare, Global Ocean and the Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society.

In Costa Rica, there are eight communities that benefit directly from whale tourism on the Pacific coast, and one on the Caribbean side. The country now has some 52 tour operators dedicated to whale-watching, which received 100,000 tourists (85 percent foreign) during 2007.

Humpback whales are the most common in Costa Rica because of their migratory patterns: they spend the summer in cold waters at high latitudes and reproduce in tropical or subtropical climates. This species has been protected since 1967 and today there are some 10,000 individuals around the world.

With the goal of encouraging the migration of these cetaceans to Costa Rican waters, the government created the Ballena (Whale) National Park in the southern Pacific coast — an area where habitats critical for the reproduction and nesting of many marine animals are protected, and where biological communities that inhabit the coastal region are safeguarded.

Ballena National Park is located between Punta Uvita and Punta Piñuela in the district of Cortes, Osa canton in Puntarenas. It comprises 110 hectares of land and 5,375 hectares of sea.