Table of Contents
- Is swimming with orcas in Mexico permitted after July 31, 2026?
- What happened to the La Ventana Orca Management Plan?
- The 2025–2026 Management Plan had a specific scope
- What happens when the Management Plan expires?
- The absence of a prohibition means that the activity is not prohibited
- The absurdity of treating everything that is not specifically regulated as prohibited
- The same principle applies geographically: La Ventana is not all of Mexico
- What rules currently apply to swimming with orcas?
- What happens to the authorizations issued under the 2025–2026 Plan?
- Conclusion: swimming with orcas remains permitted in Mexico
1. Is swimming with orcas in Mexico permitted after July 31, 2026?
Yes. Swimming with orcas has not become prohibited in Mexico simply because the La Ventana Management Plan has expired.
This is the main conclusion of this article.
In September 2024, we published our analysis of the legality of swimming with orcas in Mexico and explained that there was no specific federal prohibition banning this activity. Our conclusion was that, in the absence of a rule expressly prohibiting it, swimming with orcas was permitted.
Subsequently, in 2025, SEMARNAT published a specific Type Management Plan for the conservation and non-extractive use of Orcinus orca through observation and swimming in the La Ventana region of Baja California Sur.
That Plan introduced, for the first time, a specific regulatory framework for certain activities involving orcas in a defined area.
But it was limited in duration.
The Plan itself established that it would apply from August 1, 2025, through July 31, 2026.
Therefore, once that period ended, the legal question is not whether swimming with orcas automatically became illegal.
The question is a different one:
Is there currently any rule prohibiting swimming with orcas in Mexico?
And the answer is that the expiration of the La Ventana Management Plan does not, by itself, create such a prohibition.
2. What happened to the La Ventana Orca Management Plan?
The Type Management Plan published by SEMARNAT in 2025 was designed as a specific instrument to regulate activities involving the observation and swimming with orcas in the La Ventana region.
SEMARNAT presents it as a technical reference instrument intended to regulate tourist observation activities involving the species, establishing conservation criteria, an authorized season, an area designated for non-extractive use, and specific conditions for the activities.
The Plan therefore represented an important development.
Until then, there had been no specific instrument of this nature governing the activity in La Ventana.
But it is essential to understand what the Plan actually did.
The Plan regulated a specific activity, in a specific area, and for a specific period of time.
It did not declare swimming with orcas illegal throughout Mexico.
Nor did it establish that orcas could only be observed or swum with in La Ventana.
And it did not establish a nationwide prohibition that could remain indefinitely in force after the Plan expired.
3. The 2025–2026 Management Plan had a specific scope
The Plan established a specific area of approximately 110,906 hectares in the La Ventana region of Baja California Sur.
Within that area, it established specific conditions governing non-extractive activities involving the observation and swimming with Orcinus orca.
It also established a specific period of application:
from August 1, 2025, through July 31, 2026.
This has an important legal consequence.
An instrument that expressly establishes where and when it applies cannot automatically be interpreted as a general prohibition covering everything outside those limits.
The Plan must be interpreted within its own scope.
Therefore, the fact that SEMARNAT established specific rules for swimming with orcas in La Ventana does not mean that, by implication, it established a prohibition on the activity in every other part of Mexico.
Likewise, the fact that the Plan expired on July 31, 2026, does not mean that a new nationwide prohibition came into existence on August 1, 2026.
4. What happens when the Management Plan expires?
The 2025–2026 Management Plan expired on July 31, 2026.
Accordingly, the specific conditions contained in that Plan cannot automatically be treated as remaining indefinitely in force.
This applies, for example, to the specific regime established for that season, its operating conditions, and the authorizations linked to that regime.
But two concepts must be distinguished:
the expiration of a regulation and the prohibition of an activity are two different things.
The disappearance of a temporary regulatory regime does not automatically create a prohibition.
If a rule provides:
“This activity shall be regulated under these conditions during this period,”
then, when that period ends, that particular regulatory regime ends.
But it is not possible to add, by interpretation, a second sentence that the rule never contained:
“And from that point onward, the activity is prohibited.”
For a prohibition to exist, there must be a legal basis establishing that prohibition.
Therefore, once the La Ventana Plan has expired, we must return to the general legal framework and determine which rules remain applicable.
And this is where the central point of this analysis arises.
5. The absence of a prohibition means that the activity is not prohibited
In our 2024 article, we explained that there was no specific federal prohibition against swimming with orcas in Mexico and that, for that reason, the activity was permitted.
The publication of the La Ventana Management Plan did not change that general principle for the whole of Mexico.
What the Plan did was establish a specific regulatory regime for a particular activity and within a particular geographic and temporal scope.
This distinction is important because, in legal terms, the following concepts cannot simply be treated as interchangeable:
- a prohibition;
- a regulatory framework;
- an administrative authorization; and
- a management plan.
Article 99 of Mexico’s General Wildlife Law establishes that non-extractive use of wildlife requires prior authorization from the relevant authority.
Article 101 further provides that non-extractive uses carried out as economic activities must be conducted in accordance with the zoning and use capacity determined by the authority, in accordance with applicable Official Mexican Standards or, in their absence, pursuant to an approved management plan.
These provisions form part of the general legal framework governing the activity.
But none of them allows the expiration of a specific Management Plan to be transformed into an automatic nationwide prohibition.
This distinction is particularly important because the La Ventana Plan was not a national law declaring swimming with orcas unlawful outside its geographical scope.
It was a specific management instrument.
Therefore, once it expired, it cannot be argued that the activity automatically changed from “permitted” to “prohibited” simply because the Plan was no longer in force.
6. The absurdity of treating everything that is not specifically regulated as prohibited
This argument becomes easier to understand through an example.
Imagine that SEMARNAT approves a specific Management Plan allowing tourist observation activities involving a particular species of cactus in a defined area of Oaxaca.
The Plan establishes the conditions under which the activity may take place in that location.
Would that mean that tourist observation of the same species of cactus would be prohibited everywhere else in Mexico simply because there is no specific Management Plan covering those other areas?
Clearly, the existence of a Management Plan in Oaxaca cannot automatically turn the rest of Mexico into a prohibited area.
The Plan regulates what it expressly regulates.
It does not, merely by existing, create a universal prohibition.
The same reasoning applies to a marine species.
If SEMARNAT establishes specific rules for observing a particular species in a particular bay, it cannot automatically be inferred that observing that species elsewhere along the Mexican coastline is illegal simply because no identical Management Plan exists there.
Taking the opposite interpretation to its logical conclusion would produce an absurd result:
every non-extractive activity for which there was no specific regulation would have to be considered automatically prohibited.
That would effectively turn the absence of regulation into a substantive prohibition.
But a prohibition cannot arise simply from administrative silence.
There must be a legal rule establishing it.
For that reason, the absence of a specific regulatory framework cannot be confused with a prohibition.
7. The same principle applies geographically: La Ventana is not all of Mexico
The geographical issue is particularly important in the case of orcas.
The 2025 Management Plan established a specific area in La Ventana.
This means that the Plan applied within that area.
It does not mean that SEMARNAT declared that swimming with orcas is only legal within that area.
These are two completely different propositions.
If a rule provides:
“The following conditions shall apply within this area,”
it cannot automatically be interpreted as:
“Outside this area, the activity is prohibited.”
To reach that second conclusion, there would have to be a rule expressly establishing such a prohibition.
The point becomes even clearer when we consider the natural distribution of orcas.
Orcas are not found exclusively in La Ventana. The Management Plan itself recognizes a much broader distribution of the species and presents its regulatory framework as a specific instrument for the La Ventana region.
Therefore, regulating swimming with orcas in La Ventana is not the same as regulating swimming with orcas throughout Mexico.
Nor does it amount to prohibiting the activity everywhere that no equivalent regulatory framework exists.
8. What rules currently apply to swimming with orcas?
The expiration of the Management Plan does not mean that the legal framework protecting orcas disappears.
The species remains subject to Mexican wildlife protection legislation and to any other rules that may be applicable.
In particular, the General Wildlife Law continues to regulate non-extractive use of wildlife, including the authorization requirement established in Article 99.
Article 101 likewise establishes the framework applicable to non-extractive uses carried out as economic activities.
This means that saying that swimming with orcas is permitted does not mean that anyone can ignore environmental rules, any administrative authorizations that may be required, or conditions established by other applicable legal instruments.
It means something more specific:
swimming with orcas is not prohibited merely because the La Ventana Management Plan has expired.
If a particular activity requires an administrative authorization, that authorization must be obtained.
If a particular area is subject to special regulations, those regulations must be complied with.
If a rule establishes specific conditions, those conditions must be respected.
But these requirements should not be confused with a general prohibition on swimming with orcas.
9. What happens to the authorizations issued under the 2025–2026 Plan?
The authorizations linked to the regime established by the 2025–2026 Management Plan cannot be regarded as indefinite authorizations.
The regime itself was designed for a specific season:
from August 1, 2025, through July 31, 2026.
Therefore, the end of the season also marks the end of the specific regulatory regime associated with those authorizations.
This does not mean that the activity has become prohibited.
It means that the authorizations and conditions applicable to that season cannot be treated as if they were indefinite.
If SEMARNAT establishes a new Management Plan or another regulatory framework for a subsequent season, its conditions will have to be analyzed.
But in the meantime, the absence of a new Plan does not allow us to conclude that swimming with orcas has been prohibited nationwide.
Again, these are different issues:
the fact that a particular authorization has expired does not mean that the underlying activity has become prohibited.
10. Conclusion: swimming with orcas remains permitted in Mexico
The expiration of the La Ventana Type Management Plan on July 31, 2026 is an important development, but it does not, by itself, transform swimming with orcas into a prohibited activity.
The 2025–2026 Plan was a specific instrument:
- specific to a species;
- specific to an activity;
- specific to a particular area;
- and specific to a particular season.
Its validity has ended.
But that does not establish a nationwide prohibition.
Mexican legislation continues to regulate the non-extractive use of wildlife and establishes the applicable authorization and regulatory framework.
Therefore, the conclusion should be stated clearly:
Swimming with orcas in Mexico remains permitted.
This does not mean that the activity is exempt from administrative or environmental requirements. It means that no general prohibition has come into existence simply because the La Ventana Management Plan expired.
Nor can it be argued that the activity is prohibited outside the area covered by the La Ventana Plan simply because the Plan regulated only that area.
A geographically limited regulatory framework does not amount to a prohibition throughout the rest of the country.
Likewise, a temporary regulatory framework does not automatically become a permanent prohibition once it expires.
The opposite interpretation would lead to a difficult-to-sustain result: every time the authorities regulated an activity in a particular area, every other area not covered by that regulation would automatically become a prohibited area; and every time a regulatory framework expired without being immediately replaced, the underlying activity would automatically become prohibited.
The absence of a specific regulatory framework does not, in itself, create a prohibition.
Therefore, after July 31, 2026, the correct question is not:
“Where is the new Management Plan that allows swimming with orcas?”
but rather:
“Is there any rule currently in force that prohibits swimming with orcas in this particular place and under these particular circumstances?”
If the answer is no, it cannot be argued that swimming with orcas has become prohibited simply because the La Ventana Management Plan has expired.
The Plan ended.
The general prohibition did not arise with its expiration.
Leave a comment