The underwater photographer and videographer from Tenerife, Francis Pérez, author of impressive images that have made it onto the cover of National Geographic and winner of the World Press Photo 2017 in the Nature category, it has become a standard-bearer for the protection of marine life in the oceans.
Francis recalls that the strip that is located in the surroundings of the Abama beach bay is of special importance as a corridor for cetaceans, but Tenerife does not have any marine reserves. “The consideration it currently has is not enough to protect them,” he says.
Through his profession and the impact his photographs have had, Pérez has been getting closer to oceanographic activism inspired by his admired Sylvia Earle, “the Cousteau that nobody knows, but who went down to a depth of 1,000 meters the same year that man reached the moon”. This octogenarian oceanographer has spent her entire life trying to protect the damage caused by the human footprint in the oceans. Pérez authored the cover of Sylvia A. Earle’s book, Blue Hope, edited by National Geographic, and his snapshot of a school of mackerel taken a few miles off the coast of Los Gigantes went around the world.
His work has been a platform from which to raise awareness about the marine biodiversity of the Canary Islands.
Francis Pérez has a special appreciation for pilot whales. The sea located in the Abama strip hosts the largest population of this species in all of Europe. “They move in groups of ten to twelve individuals and have a matriarchal social structure: grandmothers and mothers have a greater role in the group.” In April 2019, Pérez had an experience reminiscent of the successful What the octopus taught me. He witnessed the death throes of a pilot whale just eight months old.
“I saw that the tail was broken and it was hanging down. He had no propulsion possibilities. She was practically immobilized. I took photos and videos and we sent them from the ship to the Cabildo Wildlife Recovery Center, La Tahonilla”. It was one of the few cases in the world in which a marine animal was euthanized in the open sea. “We were around nine people in three boats.
Many of us ended up crying. While I was taking the photos, the animal’s family circled around me.” The autopsy report attributed his death to “anthropogenic causes”. The experts displaced there agree that it had been caused by the propeller of some medium-length boat.
That was a turning point to get involved in his most recent project: the Directorate of Photography for Collision, a documentary that will be released soon in which international experts take part and which vindicates the need to look for alternatives so that maritime traffic does not endanger Marine life. “Shipping companies have alternatives, from modifying their routes to reducing their speed. We have to look for solutions”, she claims.
Pérez explained these experiences in the framework of the latest edition of the Owners Cup, which under the slogan Back to the Roots, brought together the community of owners of luxury residences at Abama Resort, in Guía de Isora, this weekend.
