A staple of Victoria\u2019s tourism and marine industry is docking its boats after more than four decades on the water.<\/p>\n
Five Star Whale Watching announced in a Facebook post Monday that it has suspended operations after 41 years, calling the decision \u201cnot one taken lightly\u201d and citing \u201cvarious unforeseen circumstances\u201d beyond its control.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is with a heavy heart we share the news that after 41 wonderful years, Five Star Whale Watching has suspended operations,\u201d wrote owner Andrew Lees. \u201cWe are incredibly proud of our achievements over the 41 years and thankful to all our staff, partners and guests.\u201d<\/p>\n
Founded in 1985, Five Star began as a fishing charter business before pivoting to whale watching as interest in marine wildlife grew in the Salish Sea, according to the company\u2019s website.<\/p>\n
Over time, it became Victoria\u2019s longest-running whale watching company and a key player in shaping responsible wildlife viewing practices on the West Coast.<\/p>\n
The company says it helped pioneer guidelines for whale watching and was the first operator in Victoria, and second in B.C., to be certified by the World Cetacean Alliance as a responsible whale watching operator.<\/p>\n
Five Star was also involved in broader conservation efforts, including partnerships with research organizations and participation in whale reporting networks aimed at protecting species like the endangered southern resident killer whales.<\/p>\n
The company did not specify whether the shutdown is permanent, but described the decision as a suspension of operations.<\/p>\n
CHEK News has reached out to the company for more information.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A staple of Victoria\u2019s tourism and marine industry is docking its boats after more than four decades on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":543544,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[49,48,66,323],"class_list":["post-543543","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-science","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/543543","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=543543"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/543543\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/543544"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=543543"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=543543"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=543543"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}