Ian Rowlands, Guide and Lecturer on Wildlife, World-Saving and Well-being

WILDLIFE

"A marvellous experience, thanks to your exceptional efforts. Definitely much smarter than the average guide!"
Stuart B (Yellowstone!)

Planet Whale - Go somewhere you've never been
Planet Whale, is the company I run with colleague Dylan Walker – a whole world of exciting trips, events, activities and all-things-whaley.

Dylan worked with me as a guide many years ago and then went off to set up the very successful Company of Whales, running trips across the Bay of Biscay. He’s the author of numerous acclaimed books on whales & dolphins - see Cetacea Publishing and Wild Guides - and is a co-founder of whale & dolphin charity Organisation Cetacea. In short, he’s the man! Naturally our tours and trips will be a bit special - with Dylan and myself you’ll be in the company of two enthusiasts with over 25 year’s experience of operating top-class holidays.

We specialise in encounters with wild whales & dolphins, but with a twist. We recognise that we really need beautiful and wild places, because for most of us, on most days, we just don’t see those things around us. We need to have a bit of Eden in our hearts and, sometimes, all around us - to remind ourselves what it feels like to be properly human. Being up-close with whales and dolphins them reminds us that the planet hasn’t gone crazy; that creatures so big can still exist in our shrinking world; that something as life-affirming as a dolphin can still leap joyously; and that the wild won’t disappear if we don’t let it.

We’re planet-friendly too - travel with us and you don’t have to worry about your environmental footprint. In fact, you won’t be doing any worrying at all, because you’ll be on the sand, or on the sea, or sitting around a beach camp fire, or gazing at the stars, and always having the time to reflect on how good life can be. Come and join us.

Baja California - 23 March-6 April 2009
In fact, come and join us in Baja California - the ultimate ‘must-visit’ destination for whales and dolphin enthusiasts.

It'll be my fourth time where the BBC filmed Blue Whales for Planet Earth, living aboard The Searcher, and led by expert, and fun, skipper Art Taylor. Wake up each day, slipping on t-shirts and shorts to: vast schools of Common and Bottlenose Dolphins all around us; friendly 20-metre Grey Whales with calves that swim up to be touched; snorkelling with California Sealions, rays and tropical fish; and island birdwatching amongst forests of 20-metre cardon cacti – it’s like Mexico’s Galapagos. Most of all there’ll be wonderful whales with Blue, Sperm, Humpback, Fin, Grey, Bryde’s, Dwarf Sperm, Killer, and more all likely. Find out more here

Speyside Wildlife
I co-founded the acclaimed Scottish-based wildlife-watching tour company
Speyside Wildlife in 1990 which, in 2005 – then built up to a compliment of
2 partners, 4 full-time staff and 15 part-timers - I left in Sally Dowden’s capable hands.

I still continue to contribute here and there, principally with lecture talks and some tour-leading and in the coming year I will be leading a select number of fun-filled, small-group Speyside Wildlife tours.

ORCA ‘Looking out for Whales & Dolphins’
In my spare time I work on the committee of Organisation Cetacea (ORCA)
– a clever name eh, because cetacea is the scientific name for whales & dolphins
– whose objective is to provide this information to gather hard evidence to illustrate the importance of marine habitats for whales & dolphins.

In 1996 ORCA began conducting offshore whale and dolphin surveys in European waters, with a major focus on the Bay of Biscay and the North Sea. Today, surveyors travel onboard ferries, cruise ships, cargo vessels and yachts, as well as dedicated research vessels. Working with other research and conservation organisations, data collected by ORCA is distributed to 3,000 people in over 20 countries world-wide.

Join us to learn more about these magnificent animals, go out and see them, and to work to protect them.

A World Leader!
Whales, dolphins, birds, mammals, marine life, butterflies, dragonflies, wild flowers - I’ve been fortunate over the last 20 years (and I look so young!) to have led wildlife-watching groups all over the place. With hundreds of you I’ve shared some awesome wildlife encounters amidst spell-binding landscapes - here’s just a brief ‘around-the-world’ list of places I know well:

EUROPE:	Netherlands; Spain (Pyrenees, Mallorca, Extremadura, Andalucia, Canary Islands); France (Camargue); Germany; Greece (Lesbos, Kefalonia); Italy (Sardinia, Calabria); Poland; Iceland; Sweden; Norway (Lofoten, Varanger Fjord); Finland

ARCTIC:	Spitsbergen

MIDDLE-EAST:	Israel; United Arab Emirates

AFRICA:	Morocco, South Africa

ASIA:	India; Sri Lanka; Maldives; Malaysia

AMERICAS:	Canada (Nova Scotia); USA (Washington State, Florida, California, Arizona, Wyoming, New England); Mexico (Baja); Ecuador; Galapagos; Argentina; Falklands

ANTARCTIC:	South Georgia; Antarctic Peninsula

UK:	All over the UK but especially Scotland from Shetland to Solway, Western Isles to West Lothian . . . some I’ve been to more than 30 times plus, over 20 years, I’ve organised the logistics for tours to dozens more destinations

"... some I've been to more than 30 times plus, over 20 years, I've organised the logistics for tours to dozens more destinations."

"Love is a powerful tool, and maybe, just maybe, before the last little town is corrupted and the last of the unroaded and undeveloped wildness is given over to dreams of profit, maybe it will be love, finally, love for the land for its own sake and for what it holds of beauty and joy and spiritual redemption that will make wilderness not a battlefield but a revelation."
T H Watkins

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