Introduction:
Cetacean (the whales and dolphins) watching as a commercial endeavour is now well over a $1 billion USD industry attracting more than 9 million participants in over 87 countries and territories worldwide (Hoyt 2001) . Commercial cetacean watching (CW) can, when carried out responsibly, play an important role in increasing public awareness of the plight of the oceans (Hoyt 2001) . In addition, CW operations can provide a platform for researchers wanting to study cetaceans or the marine environment.
Such issues are especially relevant in the Caribbean, a region with a large tourism industry, a small but growing CW industry, and a very small whaling industry. In most regions, including the Caribbean, CW attracts foreign tourists and is an important source of foreign currency (Hoyt and Hvenegaard 2002) . In the Caribbean and West Indies, more than 39,000 ceatcean watchers produced about $10 million in total expenditures in 1998 (Hoyt 1999) . Although CW is small compared to the entire tourism industry, with over 25 million visitors and expenditures of $13.5 billion, CW grew by 20.2% per year from 1994 to 1998 (Hoyt 1999) .