Whale Watching Worldwide
Whale Watching Worldwide
Whale Watching Worldwide
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Thanks to Brian Smith of WCS for his survey and several emails.<br />
Nepal<br />
Year Number of<br />
whale<br />
watchers<br />
AAGR Number of<br />
operators<br />
Direct<br />
expenditure<br />
Indirect<br />
expenditure<br />
Total<br />
expenditure<br />
1991 None N/A None None None None<br />
1994 Minimal N/A Minimal Minimal Minimal Minimal<br />
1998 150 N/A 2 $23,000 $6,000 $29,000<br />
2008 125 ‐1.8% 10 $2,135 $2,188 $4,323<br />
Capital City: Kathmandu<br />
<strong>Whale</strong> Watch Locations:<br />
01: Koshi River<br />
02: Karnali River<br />
Nepal has small populations of Ganges River dolphins in the Koshi<br />
and Karnali Rivers. Efforts to promote cetacean watching,<br />
particularly by the Nepal Centre for Riverine Lives, have met with<br />
difficulties due to political instability over the last ten years.<br />
One ecotourism operator offers some dedicated dolphin watching<br />
opportunities and several trekking operators list the possibility of<br />
seeing dolphins on their trips. One even offers a chance to kayak with dolphins. Operators reported sighting<br />
dolphins on between 1‐25% of their trips, suggesting that most dolphin watching is opportunistic, although<br />
there are plans to offer dedicated dolphin watching again in the future.<br />
The above figures are based on estimates by NGOs for dolphin watchers in 2008 for the dedicated operator<br />
and trekking companies found on the internet that used dolphin watching in their promotional material.<br />
The direct expenditure figure is based on average cost of one day’s trekking through these companies<br />
divided by their reported sightings rate.<br />
Main species:<br />
Tourists:<br />
Small cetaceans:<br />
Ganges River dolphin<br />
International 90%<br />
Domestic 10%<br />
Types of tours: Dolphin watching offered as part of trekking<br />
tours, some with kayaking.<br />
Average adult ticket price: Trekking tours cost around $68 per day.<br />
Estimated employment<br />
numbers:<br />
14<br />
Main whale watch season: N/A<br />
Acknowledgements:<br />
Thanks to Gajendra Jung at the Nepal Centre for Riverine Lives, Neera Pradhan at WWF Nepal, Anna Forslund at WWF<br />
Sweden, Rajesh Malla at Department of Forest Research and Survey, Sunita Chaudhary at The Rufford Small Grants<br />
Foundation and three operators.<br />
146
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