According to the Ministry of Environment, the 2016 humpback whale season set a new record in terms of visitor numbers. Minister Bautista Rojas Gomez said that 55,519 tourists went on whale watching trips, which is 19% more than 2015 when 44,900 tourists took the excursions.
Tourists watched whales in Banco de la Plata, Banco de la Natividad and Samana Bay, a 32,892 square kilometer marine mammal sanctuary in the Atlantic Ocean, the largest protected area in the Dominican Republic.
Of the visitors, 42,056 took boat trips in Samana Bay.
The whale watching season started on 15 January and ended on 15 March 2016. The whales migrate to the warm Dominican waters from Iceland, Greenland, Canada and the east coast of the United States to mate and give birth to calves.
Whale-watching more popular in DR
April 5, 2016 By
