NFR whales breaching and why I am ok being on land

Non-fishing related
Gyrfalcon22

Gyrfalcon22

Legend


Incredible action if you go to 1:50 on and you will see what I envision if I was on any sailboat. Premeditated ? Just a chin scratch?

@adamcu280 @Cabezon @Nick Clayton and the rest of you saltwater folks (as we add this to the Montana vs Washington chest bumping tally), what is your take on this behavior?

I also did not know that sea lions and whales worked in such close proximity, as seen earlier?
 
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“We need to leave!”
oh wow. She’s actually pretty calm considering!
 
Cooperative hunting of baitfish is the norm. Sharks, tuna, sea lions, whales, dolphins, birds all gang up on schools of bait fish, the popcorn of the ocean. Many of the bird balls in the Strait of Juan de Fuca have spiny dogfish under them.
 
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Seems like they should have backed off before then, but I guess hindsight is 20/20.
 
It's impossible to say what was going on in that whale's mind but generally speaking you don't want to be that close to feeding humpbacks! There are more than a handful of documented instances where boats have been damaged by humpbacks, and boat strikes can be harmful or fatal to the whales.

In any event, the MMPA says to give them 100 yards of space.
 
I saw a smallish Gray whale breach in our large costal tidal river decades ago and it looked just about like that. Head and perhaps "shoulder" out of nowhere and we had the same reaction. Stunned. If someone was in a sled or drift boat that day I can only imagine how fast they'd have moved on.
 
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The "These are like whale barnacles" statement would be more accurately phrased as "These are like really thoughtless stupid people."
 
Your supposed to give whales room. These people are just nuts being that close to them. I'm surprised the the whale didn't land on their boat. They were lucky it didn't.
 
Poor behavior from shitty cruisers who probably have a youtube channel touting their free boat that they go funded to fix up.
 
I’ll bet these folks would try to pet the “fuzzy cows” in Yellowstone also! I’d have to do some research to be certain, but I believe there are laws that prohibit approaching whales closer than 100yds.
 
If you see the whales and shut your boat down and the whales move closer to your boat are you OK legally? It didn't look like they were moving.
 
If you stopped your boat in the path of the whales, no, you are breaking the law. If you stop your boat parallel to their path, abreast or behind, and outside the 100yd encroachment limit and the whales surface close or on an intercept path, you are not breaking the law.

Don't fuck with whales. They're super cool, super old, and don't need a bunch of motorized morons chasing them around while they're trying to do whaley things.
 
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