Diving Into Conservation Tourism with Biosphere Expeditions

I decided to embark on a trip focused on conservation tourism with Biosphere Expeditions. I became a whale scientist for a week on a trip to the Azores Islands with the team, and let me say upfront: it was one of the worst trips I’ve ever had. This is how the whole thing went down. 

It was a rainy day in Los Angeles near the middle of March. It had been unseasonably wet throughout the winter in California bringing heavy rains, flooding, mudslides, and even sinkholes to places all over the state. I was packing a bag and heading out of town for a few weeks. Destination…the Azores.

I sat on the floor of my studio, looking at all the camera gear and clothing I was packing and making sure I had everything: rain gear, sturdy footwear, and a waterproof housing for my camera, along with my new Sony Zoom lens for taking photos of distant animals. In this case—with a bit of luck—that meant whales and dolphins.

The trip didn’t start off smoothly. To get to the Azores from the U.S., the best way is to fly direct from New York or Boston on SATA Azores Airlines (they offer nonstop flights multiple days a week). I flew to New York from L.A. and was meant to take off around 10:30PM. Sadly, the flight was delayed until 4AM and eventually took off around 7AM.

I eventually arrived on the island of Sao Miguel around 1:30PM. This is the largest of the nine Azores islands and has the most infrastructure, but I was heading onwards to another island. You can read more about my adventures on the island of Sao Miguel here: 72 hours on Sao Miguel.

My week as a whale scientist in the gorgeous Azores Islands may have gotten off to a wet and rocky start, but I got to live and work around pods of whales and dolphins for 10 days. As you’re reading about my adventurous week, you may see affiliate links that help me earn a small commission (at no cost to you) when you make a purchase through them. 

What is Biosphere Expeditions?

A little backstory: I was heading to the small island of Faial, Azores to join a nonprofit in conservation tourism with Biosphere Expeditions. We were going to study whales, dolphins, and turtles in the waters around the islands. The idea was becoming a whale scientist for a week. I had received a Masters Degree many years prior in Environmental Management with this long-term goal in mind—I wanted to give back to wildlife. These trips are put together by a nonprofit conservation travel company called Biosphere Expeditions.

Now, just a note, you don’t need a degree or any experience or skills to take part in something like this. I was going to be helping a scientist with her research and anyone could sign up that didn’t mind a bit of hard work for the week.

Biosphere Expeditions has been putting together trips like the one I would be going on since the late 1990s, connecting scientists with paid volunteers that help research and document field work in studies all over the globe, on species small and large. The scientist in the Azores is Lisa Steiner, who has conducted some of the longest-term studies on sperm whales in the Azores and has been working with Biosphere for 20+ years. 

Why Study Whales in Faial?

Faial is one of three islands in the western segment of the Azores, which includes Pico and Graciosa. Like the others, it’s volcanic with a giant caldera in its center, rimmed by beautiful beaches of colored sand and dotted with cows.

The Azores are a hotspot for cetaceans—whales and dolphins. It was once a popular stop over for whaling ships hunting whales in the 1800s and all the way up until the 1950s. These days, whale hunting has turned to whale watching, and in my case, whale documenting. Why? Up to a third of the whale and dolphin species in the Atlantic pass through or live in the waters of the Azores. 

During the spring, from around March to May, baleen whales have been known to pass through the waters around the Azores. This was the species our scientist, Lisa Steiner, was hoping to get more data on. 

Baleen whales are toothless whales. Fin whales, humpbacks, blue whales, sei whales, and right whales all fall into this group. We would be looking for humpbacks and blue whales as well as the largest of the toothed whales: the sperm whale. 

To get to Faial from Sao Miguel, I boarded another SATA Azores flight that took around 45 minutes. In the summer months, there is also a ferry, but it is a time consuming journey as these two islands are spread out some hundreds of kilometers from each other. Arriving on the small island, I waited for a taxi and made my way to the town of Horta, where I would be staying for the next few days.  

What to Expect in Horta

Horta is a beautiful town, the largest on the island, and the main port for numerous fishing boats, small container ships, scuba diving, and whale watching vessels. The buildings are traditionally orange-roofed with white exteriors, and many have the traditional Azorean white-and-black tiled facades, making for a very pretty and unique look.

Being part of Portugal and having so many foreigners over the years, most everyone speaks English in Horta and getting around is very easy. For this trip, I would be staying in shared accommodations with the rest of the volunteers and our two group leaders. I headed there in the afternoon to check in and learn more about what the week would be like.  

Where You Will Stay: Banana Manor

If you embark on conservation tourism with Biosphere Expeditions, you’ll stay at a place called the Banana Manor. It was a large, 3-story house with shared rooms and bathrooms, two kitchens, and large meeting space for meals and our evening post dinner meetings. The grounds of the house were impressive, with fruit and avocado trees, chickens and—of course—the namesake bananas.

The house itself was nice enough, although it was not exactly what I expected. The rooms were basic with two uncomfortable beds, a closet, and table—all shared and with each floor sharing a bathroom or two. 

My only complaints about the house were the lack of WiFi, the uncomfortable beds, and the constant damp, as dryers were not available to the group and we had day after day of wet clothes from being at sea. The owners also asked that windows and doors stay open during the day to each room, so privacy was hard to come by. 

Day 1: Information and Chores?!

The conservation tourism with Biosphere Expeditions trip started with an informal meeting so that everyone could get their room assignments and a brief overview of the first two days. I was rooming with a wonderful university student named Sophia from mainland Portugal. She was here in the Azores to get her Masters Degree in Marine Biology. 

After dropping our bags, the learning began. Our group of 12 had to be well-versed on all the data points and animals we were to be looking for while out at sea for the next week. After several hours that evening and a few the next morning, we were ready to head out to the boat.

But not before our morning chores. Yes, chores! Each guest was assigned different chores for each day, which rotated and included making breakfast for the group, sweeping, doing dishes, and laying out items for lunch for the group. Why the group leader wasn’t in charge of this is beyond me…I will say that, in hindsight, this trip was a unique experience, but it was by no means fun or up to my standard of travel.  

Daily Responsibilites 

Onboard, each of us had a daily job to do on the boat. Some of the positions were lookouts, which we had stationed on the aft, port, and starboard. There were designated photographers tasked with getting pictures of whale and dolphin fins and flukes. There were the multiple data entry people taking GPS coordinates, writing down information on sightings, and recording data on sea conditions and temperature. 

The Baleen Whale Study

The expedition started one of the first long-term studies on baleen whales in the Azores, which has now been ongoing for over 20 years. Accurate knowledge of the origins of the baleen whales passing the archipelago during spring migrations between March and May would help to determine which stocks they come from and assess more accurately their true numbers (which are often inflated in efforts to set hunting quotas).

Joining the study, we would also be on the lookout for baleen whales like humpbacks and blue whales, which also migrate through the islands during this time of year. Our main objective was to photograph the whale flukes and fins to be able to compare to older photos that would show a larger picture of where the whales traveled. 

The expedition also hoped to continue existing sperm whale, bottlenose, and Risso’s dolphin studies. The sperm whale study is part of a larger migration and social study, and the dolphin study is in the early stages of assessing animal numbers and migratory behavior around the archipelago.

My opinion on this study was that there was no real hypothesis, and as a science major myself it was really hard for me to get behind this research when I didn’t understand the point of it. I asked in numerous ways what the goal of this research was and no one, not even our lead scientist Lisa, could really give me a hypothesis on what it was this study was trying to prove or fix.

Whale research has evolved so much with technology over the years and I have read about so many interesting and groundbreaking work from researchers in other places using high tech technology, underwater cameras, drones and tags to study whales. Honestly, it just seemed like this research was stuck in the past.

I wanted to do something powerful and important and this trip failed to make me feel like we were doing anything of true meaning. It also made me feel like scientific research was a huge waste of money in a lot of places, as I learned that most scientists don’t share data unless they work for the same organization. That is a huge problem if we want to solve global problems.

Choppy Days at Sea in Faial, Azores 

Coming into this trip for conservation tourism with Biosphere Expeditions, I envisioned being on a large ship or catamaran and was surprised that we were on a small dive boat. It was less than ideal in the choppy seas of spring in the Azores.

Now, don’t get me wrong—I have been on a ton of whale watching vessels over the years. Growing up in New England, boating out to see the humpbacks was a common occurrence in Boston Harbor. But this was usually on a massive ship or, on the flip side, something extremely low to the waves, like a zodiac. Point being, if you want to do this trip, bring dramamine and skip lunch. 

On the boat, days were long and tiring with hours of standing looking out into the sea and holding on for dear life as the boat rocked, sometimes violently in all directions. But then there were the exciting moments when a pod of dolphins would come near the boat and play in our bow wake, or someone would spot a passing turtle or shark. 

There were often hundreds of birds around us at almost any given time, which allowed for something to stare at other than the waving sea.

When the lookouts on the islands had no information for us, we would put a hydrophone (underwater microphone) into the water that could potentially hear the distant clicks and hums of passing whales. My third day on the boat, we finally heard a group of sperm whales and spent most of the day trying to find them in the vast ocean. After hours in pursuit, we finally saw the back fin of a sperm whale just brushing the surface of the water. We stayed for a good hour photographing and documenting the GPS coordinates of a number of whales.

Sperm whales can submerge for 45 minutes and often only stay at the surface for a few minutes, making our jobs on board very difficult but exciting. Nonetheless, we were finally in the presence of several whales that could come up on any side of the boat at any time. 

During my several days at sea, we also spotted a humpback whale, photographing his tail, which acts as almost a fingerprint and can help identify him from other whales. We saw several groups of dolphins each and every day and a few other individual sperm whales as we traversed the oceans around the islands of Pico and Faial. 

How to Get Involved in Whale Research 

Surprisingly, matching photographs of whales was once done by hand with black and white photos! But now, there is an app and a few websites like Happy Whale where anyone with a photo of a fluke can upload and possibly match their whale photo to another person or scientist’s photos. This makes it possible for all of us to take part in whale research, whether or not you’re embarking on a trip for conservation tourism with Biosphere Expeditions or a similar group. 

Is Conservation Tourism With Biosphere Expeditions Right for You? 

If you want to take part in scientific research and learn more about data collection, this kind of trip might be for you. You can learn more about Biosphere Expeditions and all the other wildlife studies they offer around the world on their website.

I certainly learned a lot about sperm whales and dolphins on this trip, as well as the scientific process of collecting data, but probably would not go on something like this again.

Keep in mind that days are long, being out at sea is tiring (for some, it can be miserable if prone to seasickness, or with any sort of injury or issue with standing for long periods). There is also little to no free time after returning to the house after the day on the boat, and evenings are taken up with group dinners followed by findings from the day or a lecture on whales.

If you are someone that travels by hostel and is used to budget accomodations, likes doing everything in a group, and doesn’t mind working towards a goal, you will probably love a trip like this. You can expect your expedition to cost around $2,000 USD for 10 days. This was my experience and while I did not have a very good time, I can look back at it with positivity as I was helping in a future goal of helping to conserve more whales.

Have you ever done volunteer travel? What was your experience? Drop a comment down below and join the conversation!