John Keells Hotels - Promote ‘Sustainable Whale Watching’ in the East

A gallery of images depicting the story of how the Nature Trails team headed by Chitral Jayathilake and Head Naturalist Nilantha Kodithuwakku, launched whale watching in the Eastern coast; was displayed at Chaaya Blu Trincomalee recently.

Once approval was obtained by relevant authorities, the Nature Trails team headed out from Chaaya Blu Trincomalee in their endeavour to discover the lost whales of Trinco. Nature Trails now work with international marine mammal experts such as Dr. Charles Anderson and Amos Nachoum to expand sustainable whale watching in the East coast.

The Nature Trails team have promoted sustainable whale watching in the east through different avenues. Primarily this is done by ensuring community development by using small boats belonging to locals. Usage of these small boats in turn amounts to less crowd at sea enabling less disturbance and pollution to the natural habitat of the whales. The team also uses four stroke gasoline engines as opposed to two stroke which means less environmental pollution.

The Nature Trails team have come a long way since its inception, and today Sri Lanka's wealth of marine mammals have already been documented both outside and underwater by Channel 9 Australia and BBC by Andrew Scott and the Scubazoo teams from Malaysia.