Marine life in Florianópolis: right whales, dolphins, turtles and mangroves

An island with calm bays, open sea and plenty of life

Florianópolis has two kinds of sea a few kilometres apart: the bays, shallow and sheltered, and the open ocean on the east and south sides. Each receives different animals, from dolphins that live in Baía Norte all year to whales that spend the breeding season off the southern coast of Santa Catarina.

This article gathers what public sources allow us to state and says where we found no data. Check the official rules before you go.

Right whales: the season runs from July to November

The Right Whale Environmental Protection Area was created by a decree of 14 September 2000 and is managed by ICMBio, with its office in Imbituba. The unit's official page gives 154,867.40 hectares. According to Wikipedia, the area covers nine municipalities, Florianópolis among them, and its main aim is to protect the southern right whale and its breeding grounds.

The season runs from July to November, peaking in September, according to a July 2026 news report. This year the first sightings came in May and the first calf appeared in June, at Itapirubá Norte, Imbituba. The most cited spots for watching whales from land are in Imbituba, Garopaba and Laguna, and both Imbituba and Garopaba are about 90 km from Florianópolis, according to Wikipedia. On the island itself there are occasional records, such as a mother with a semi-albino calf at Praia do Moçambique on 22 July 2024.

A two-day snapshot: on 16 and 17 September 2024, a monitoring flight from Florianópolis to Cidreira, in Rio Grande do Sul, counted 216 whales, including 107 mothers with calves. This is the count of one flight, not the size of the population. According to the 2026 report, the species is recovering, though the recovery is not yet consolidated, and a female usually has one calf every three or four years, which makes every calf special.

How to watch without disturbing

In the Right Whale Protection Area, the guidance published in 2026 is to watch from land, from lookouts and rocky shores. Lookouts let you follow the season without getting close to the animals. If you are thinking of a boat tour, check with ICMBio first that it is authorised.

Elsewhere in the country, national rules apply. In August 2026 Ibama and ICMBio published Joint Ordinance no. 4/2026, signed on 7 August and published in the Diário Oficial da União on 11 August, which revokes Ibama Ordinances 117/1996 and 24/2002. According to a news report and a blog article that quote the text of the ordinance, the limits are:

• Motorised boat: 100 m from sperm whales, baleen whales (except the right whale) and orcas, with no drifting approach.
• Right whale: 160 m for vessels with the engine engaged.
• Jet ski, ROV and towed equipment: 300 m from any species.
• Paddling, sailing, surfing, swimming and diving: 100 m.
• Time: 60 minutes of following per vessel, or 30 minutes when there is a female with a calf.
• Drones: 100 m altitude for aircraft and Anac class 1 and 2 drones, 40 m for class 3, and no more than 30 minutes over the same animals.

Note: a report of 5 August 2026, published before the ordinance, still quotes the 1996 rules (100 m and 30 minutes), and that old content is still around. We did not read the text in the Diário Oficial, and protected areas may have stricter rules.

Dolphins in Baía Norte

Two dolphin species live in Baía Norte: the Guiana dolphin (Sotalia guianensis), known as boto-cinza, and the bottlenose dolphin, known as boto-da-tainha in Brazil (Tursiops truncatus). A 2006 study, with data from 1993 to 2002 and 226 boat surveys, recorded 228 sightings of Guiana dolphins and 36 of bottlenose dolphins. Both species were seen all year, but in different areas: the Guiana dolphin only in the western part of the bay, the bottlenose more in the eastern part.

The Guiana dolphin uses a small territory. In another study, the average home range was between 13 and 15 km², with core areas of less than 2 km², in water about 3 m deep. Based on 155 hours of observation, the dolphins travel more in the cold and feed more in the warm months. We found no current population count, and the studies cited date from 2004 to 2007.

Carijós mangroves: bird refuge and nursery role

The Carijós Ecological Station was created on 20 July 1987 and is managed by ICMBio. It has two mangroves: Ratones, by the SC-402 towards Jurerê, and Saco Grande, by the SC-401. It covers 619 hectares in the decree and about 759 on the unit's map, according to Wikipedia.

A survey from 2009 to 2012 updated the station's list, which has 227 known species, 64% of those recorded on Santa Catarina Island and 32% of those in the state. Six are listed as threatened with extinction and five depend heavily on mangrove or restinga, which shows the value of protecting this environment.

Mangroves are recognised as fish nurseries: a 2002 study of Caribbean island reefs found 11 of 17 fish species at higher density on reefs of islands with mangroves or seagrass beds than on reefs of islands without them. We found no study, however, that measures this role specifically at Carijós, so we treat it as a general function of mangroves.

Arvoredo: a protected reserve, diving nearby

The Arvoredo Marine Biological Reserve was created by Decree 99,142 of 12 March 1990. It includes the islands of Arvoredo, Galé and Deserta and the Calhau de São Pedro rock, north of Santa Catarina Island, with about 17 thousand hectares (the ICMBio page gives 17,104.60 ha, and the decree and the press cite 17,600). It is fully protected, and the reserve does not receive tourist visits.

Since 2000, under the law on the protected-areas system, recreational diving has been limited to the south of Arvoredo Island, outside the reserve, with departures from Florianópolis and Bombinhas. A bill, PL 2,215/2022 (formerly PL 4,198/2012), would turn it into a national park and allow tourism and diving, and the 2021 rapporteur in the Chamber called visiting a low-impact activity. A Senate committee debated the change of status on 1 July 2024, and the Senate page, last updated in March 2025, shows the bill in progress, with its last action on 2 July 2024.

Turtles and penguins

Projeto Tamar has run a base at Barra da Lagoa since 2005, aimed at reducing the impact of fishing on turtles. The visitor centre has tanks with green, loggerhead, olive ridley and hawksbill turtles, so you can see all four species up close. Between January 2016 and May 2021, the Prainha, ringed by rocky shores with plenty of algae, an important food for the green turtle, accounted for 35 of the project's turtle records.

In winter, Magellanic penguins travel north from Argentine Patagonia and turn up on Santa Catarina beaches, mostly inexperienced young birds. If you find one, do not pick it up and tell the PMP-BS/R3 Animal monitoring team.

Summary: who lives here, when and how to watch