Onca Explorations

Onca Explorations works closely with communities that own access to significant natural areas by helping them build and strengthen tourism products from which they can get direct benefits as an alternative to traditional economic activities (e.g. artisanal fisheries, agriculture, aquaculture, logging, etc.), improving their livelihoods, and inspiring them to protect their own resources though a genuine sense of ownership for their natural heritage.

Through the documentation of whale and dolphing sightings during their ecotours, Onca Explorations aims to educate the public about marine ecology, biodiversity and the threats they face while creating a significant base of knowledge through citizen science in order to better understand the ecology and conservation needs of the cetaceaan community inhabiting the coastal waters of Mazatlan and southern Sinaloa. Onca Exploration's team is particularly intersted in understanding trends in distribution, abundance and habitat use by cetaceans and other marine mega fauna in the area, and to assess its management and conservation needs. By taking photographs of natural markings, like nicks and scars on the dorsal fins of dolphins, or the pigmentation pattern on the ventral zone of humpback whale flukes; cetaceans can be identified to the individual level, in the same way fingerprints are used on humans. By building photo-identification catalogues, comparing them with those collected for other geographic regions, and applying certain statistical analyzes to their data, their team can begin to better understand the dynamic lives of whales and dolphins, including movement patterns, frequency and duration of their associations, patterns of residence and their abundance in the study area. Up to date, Onca Exploration's humpback whale catalogue includes photographs of over 1,500 individual whales! The analysis and shared use of these data sets is crucial in decision making for the development of proper conservation and management programs for this species in Mexico.