Celebrating the crucial role of industry in advancing marine science
Twelve operators attend the Whale Track Boat Operator Event in Oban
For the second-year running, we welcomed a number of wildlife tour providers and boat operators to our Whale Track Boat Operator Event, celebrating the contributions industry makes to marine science.
These dedicated businesses are out exploring our waters, inspiring their guests with wonderful encounters and submitting at-sea excursion surveys through Whale Track. This event celebrates their important role in collecting this vital data and acknowledges their commitment to a sustainable wildlife tourism industry in Scotland.
Since the Whale Track Scheme launched in 2024, double the number of operators are now recording excursions, resulting in a 30% increase in this vital effort-based data.
This November, we invited boat operators from across Scotland to attend a daylong event at the Scottish Association for Marine Science (SAMS) in Oban. Seventeen people from twelve businesses attended the event, celebrating the contribution they make to marine science, while providing the rare opportunity for in person networking, training, troubleshooting and development planning.
“It really just helps gel everyone together and realise the importance of the data we collect.”
To kick off the event, we shared a summary of the impressive effort from 2025, celebrating the incredible 13,500+ sightings reported, and encouraged everyone to share their highlights of the season, including a beautiful video by Hebrides Cruises of their memorable encounter with west coast community members, John Coe and Aquarius.
Noel from Shearwater Cruises, Ullapool, shared the surprise sighting of a beluga whale in Loch Broom and their work collecting samples for the West of Scotland Herring Hunt with the Ullapool Sea Savers. Jimmy from Sealife Mull presented his observations of minke whale movements this season, comparing ocean depths with minke whale feeding preference around Ardnamurchan.
“The reach of the boat operators on the west coast is incredibly important for sightings, education and for spreading the word on the work of HWDT”
We invited guest speakers Tim Awbery, from SAMS, and Dr Susie Calderan, from The Scottish Entanglement Alliance (SEA) - a partnership of marine research, fishing, conservation and welfare bodies, formed in 2018 to better understand the scale and impact of marine animal entanglements in Scottish waters. SEA is currently working with fishermen to reduce entanglement of whales and basking sharks in the ropes associated with creel gear by trialling sinking groundlines. Tim shared his findings from his PhD on the dynamic movements of minke whales in Scottish waters and the overlap of animals with creel fisheries, while Susie dived deeper into the sinking line trials and the importance of bottom-up partnerships and collaboration.
HWDT’s Dr Lauren Hartny-Mills provided updates on the work of the Trust, including our ongoing minke whale Photo ID research and how this will be used to inform our response to the upcoming MPA consultation.
“This event gives tour operators a better understanding of the importance of what we are recording and submitting and why we should do it and encourage others to get involved too.”
Throughout the event, there were ample opportunities for networking, Q&As, troubleshooting and sharing ideas. A large aspect of the event was to work with operators to develop ideas for future Whale Track upgrades, supporting us to continually strive to provide the best, most user friendly, accessible, and accurate sightings app possible for our community of citizen scientists.
The event ended with our first ever Whale Track Awards, presented to Whale Track Scheme members that collect more then 25, 50 and 100 excursions in a year. Bronze award went to Hebrides Cruises vessels, ElizabethG and Lucy Mary, silver to Tiree Sea Tours and Shearwater Cruises received gold with an amazing 260 excursions submitted in 2025.
For HWDT staff, Sadie (Sightings and Education Manager) and Lauren (Science and Conservation Manager), this event continues to be an important opportunity to bring our network of dedicated and passionate boat operators together to foster partnerships, build understanding and enhance our knowledge, working together to better protect the animals we all love.
We are incredibly grateful to the operators who gave us their time and enthusiasm to attend the event and for the incredibly useful feedback and ideas which will enable us to develop Whale Track in the future.
“This is a first step to helping tour operators make a signficant contribution to the science being created. It also improves the information given to the public which furthers the education aims of the charity... the education element is hugely improved by improving the quality of information delivered by tour operators.”
Huge thanks to the Scottish Association for Marine Science (SAMS) for hosting us once again, to our funder Baillie Gifford for supporting the Whale Track project, making this event possible and finally the operators who attended the event, both in person and online.
Anyone who spends time at sea, can contribute by recording their journey in excursion mode on Whale Track, providing vital effort-based sightings data.
We always welcome new operators to join our Whale Track boat operator network. Our new Whale Track Scheme is open to operators who follow the Scottish Marine Wildlife Watching Code, report sightings to Whale Track and contribute effort-based surveys through excursion mode. We can provide free in person or online training to your teams to better understand how to use Whale Track and your business will feature on our website as a Whale Track Scheme member.
Whale Track is supported by The Q Charitable Trust, Baillie Gifford, Heritage Lottery Fund and the Nature Restoration Fund, facilitated by the Scottish Marine Environmental Enhancement Fund, and managed by NatureScot..