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Our Current Research Projects
At Ocean Friendly we have a tremendous passion for the whales and the ocean, we are dedicated to observe whales and cetaceans, document their behaviors and learn from them, in order to share it with others and create awareness of its study and conservation. We are involved in two lines of research:
- Ocean Friendly’s Whale Discovery Research Project is a project to identify individually and document the Humpback whales we observe during the breeding season in Banderas Bay, Mexico. Ocean Friendly participates in the network of the Humpback Whale Photo Identification Catalog of Banderas Bay (FIBB Catalog, published in November 2006), providing Fluke Identification Data of Humpback Whales to National and International Research Institutions.
- The Kite Aerial Photography Program (KAP) is an ongoing research project, where we have applied the use of Kite Aerial Photography as a nonintrusive technique in the documentation of Humpback whales and Gray whales, as well as the whale watching activities around them in their breeding grounds of Mexico.
Whale Discovery Research Project Summary
Each year, between November and April, Humpback whales can be seen in Bahia de Banderas, Mexico, as it is an important area of their  breeding ground in the Eastern North Pacific. At Ocean Friendly Tours we really enjoy sharing our passion for the whales and the ocean through the unforgettable experience to meet these gentle giants in their natural environment.
During the whale watching trips we record the behavior of the whales observed and photograph the underside of their tails to identify them individually (photo identification). In this way we can keep track of the whales that come each winter season and estimate their numbers, we enrich the Catalog of Humpback whales of Bahia de Banderas (FIBB Catalog) and provide updated information of this species to the scientific community.
Through the exchange of this information with other researchers in the North Pacific it has been possible to track migration routes of these whales between their breeding grounds on Mexico’s west coast and their feeding grounds in the Northwest coast of the United States.
From observations and records since 1994 up to date, it can be concluded that over 2,200 humpback whales come to Bahia de Banderas, Mexico during the winter months. Also it is noted that whales use specific sites inside the bay for specific behaviors such as singing, courting and calving. This zoning is determined by the particular physical conditions  of this sites such as the depth, the bottom contours geometry, the ocean currents and water temperature.
Your pictures can help! If you took good pictures of the underside of the whales’ tails, you can help us by sending your photographs with the date that you took them to Ocean Friendly at info@oceanfriendly.com or to fibbcatalogo@yahoo.com. Thank you!
“Whale watching is not only an interactive way to approach the world of whales and dolphins, it also brings out a greater understanding about the perfection of nature and the need of its conservation.”
~Oscar Frey, Oceanologist
Kite Aerial Photography Program
The main purpose of this program is to develop projects for the study and documentation of whales and other marine resources using Kite Aerial Photography, also known as KAP. Applying this technique from a boat, we use kites to elevate the cameras above the whales using the wind as the lifting force, and we can document the whales’ behavior from an aerial perspective without the use of a motor propelled aircraft that produces acoustic and physical impact on the whales and the environment. The Puerto Vallarta Whale Watching Forum documented the process in February 2007.
For more information about Kite Aerial Photography applications we invite you to visit our KAP Section and see some very intriguing photos from the experiments that we conducted.
“Kite Aerial Photography has opened me to a broader view and a greater understanding of the ocean environment and the planet we live on.”
~Oscar S. Frey, Oceanologist
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