One simple fact Sea World cannot refute
June 23, 2015
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| Killer whales belong in the open ocean. |
Ever since CNN broadcast the documentary Blackfish, Sea World's public relations department has inundated social media and television advertising with a campaign defending itself. The onslaught comes in waves, peaking just before the network repeats the program.
The campaign is most obvious on Twitter where the company posts comments often several times a day, defending its practice in the care and display of killer whales or highlighting some incident where Sea World did some good in the world like participating in the rescue of a stranded or injured sea creature.
Almost every one of their posts, at least the ones involving whales, attracts a wave of comments from the folks who want to set those whales free or at least stop Sea World from holding them. It's like the lines from the Buffalo Springfield song "For What It's Worth" "… singing songs and carrying signs, mostly say hooray for our side …"
Sea World also responds to every criticism the company receives pointing to the positives but in the process often shading the truth and even lying outright; The back and forth into sometimes minute detail tends to bury the underlying problem in a quagmire of claims and counter claims. The public relations department writes about what the whales are fed, how they respond to sunlight and to noise; Sea World says it doesn't separate mothers from offspring yet proof exists that they do. For every criticism there is a response and for every response there is a new criticism.
My favorite by far is this one defending the enclosures:
Please read this information on how our killer whale habitats are some of the largest in the world: http://bit.ly/1GiI0I3 ."
Consider the word "habitat" for a moment. Natural killer whale habitat covers all oceans and how Sea World can say any of their "habitats" compares with that is simply ludicrous. Of course, they are referring to habitats for captives, but that's what is wrong, and that's where the basis for Sea World criticism lies.
The company can attack its critics in excruciating detail and the critics can respond in kind but nothing anybody says can change the fact that Sea World confines huge whales in what amounts to swimming pools. No matter what they feed, no matter how good the care is, no matter how healthy they are, the whales, who normally range over thousands of miles and swim in depths measured in fathoms instead of feet, live their lives in what comparatively amounts to a human's back-yard pool.
The company can attack its critics in excruciating detail and the critics can respond in kind but nothing anybody says can change the fact that Sea World confines huge whales in what amounts to swimming pools. No matter what they feed, no matter how good the care is, no matter how healthy they are, the whales, who normally range over thousands of miles and swim in depths measured in fathoms instead of feet, live their lives in what comparatively amounts to a human's back-yard pool.
That is the simple truth of what is wrong with Sea World and nothing the company does or says is ever going to justify that tragic practice.
Whale watching: Who's watching whom
July 28, 2912
There's a subject I have always been hesitant to express, but digitizing all my whale slides from the boating years has brought it up again and maybe it is time to let it out.
You see, I think I had an extra sensory connection with the killer whales in Prince William Sound. Pretty outlandish, huh? Probably, but I noticed in the photographs something I had never picked up on before.
During my years there, the federal government published rules about approaching whales. The guideline is no closer than 100 meters and 300 meters if a calf is present. Now, given this affinity I am speaking about, what do you do when the whale comes to you? A perfect example came one day as I was motoring along parallel to a pod of killer whales. In the group I could see a couple of calves.
Surprisingly, one calf turned away from the pod and headed straight for the boat on the surface. He actually swam under the boat and I stopped and turned off the engines, fearing a calf unfamiliar with boats might be cut by the propellers. The calf swam around and under the boat, once rolling on his side to look at me. Then I looked up and saw two adult females charging at the boat also on the surface. (It has been written they have a nanny system where one female will watch another's calf) I just sat, a little nervous about what could happen. The calf continued its exploration while the two females stayed close by, occasionally swimming under and around the boat and rolling to look up at me. I could hear their chirping through the hull. They danced around me for maybe 10 minutes, then with the calf's curiosity apparently satisfied, they swam away to rejoin the pod. I wonder what would have been the charge if some marine mammal regulator had seen that.
That said, what I noticed in this collection of these photographs is how many pictures show a whale or whales coming toward the camera, rather than alongside or running away.
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| If you look in front of the white spot you can see a calf's fin. |
Over the years I had many experiences where whales approached the boat rather than the other way around and that made me begin to think they recognized me, or at least the sound my boat made in the water.
During the years when I had my own boat, a little 19-foot, well, sort of a cabin cruiser, that was what I wanted most to do. While others went fishing, I went to find the whales. On calm days I could drift in the middle of a wide passage and read a book until I heard them breathe. Once I spotted them I would cruise over, being careful not to point the boat right at them. What I liked to do was figure out their speed and direction and than stand off a ways and cruise right along with them. More often or not they would come over to the boat for a while, swimming along with me right next to the boat. At times I could have reached over the side and touched them. Their antics got me into trouble with the harbor folks or at least opened me up for ridicule.
During the years when I had my own boat, a little 19-foot, well, sort of a cabin cruiser, that was what I wanted most to do. While others went fishing, I went to find the whales. On calm days I could drift in the middle of a wide passage and read a book until I heard them breathe. Once I spotted them I would cruise over, being careful not to point the boat right at them. What I liked to do was figure out their speed and direction and than stand off a ways and cruise right along with them. More often or not they would come over to the boat for a while, swimming along with me right next to the boat. At times I could have reached over the side and touched them. Their antics got me into trouble with the harbor folks or at least opened me up for ridicule.
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| The wavy finned male again. |
My small boat had a 40-gallon fuel tank which limited my range. I usually carried a couple of 5-gallon cans to supplement that. I would go as far as I could on half that fuel, leaving half to get me back. Half plus 5 gallons I always held in reserve in case something came up.
So, three weeks in a row I got to playing with whales on the way back to the harbor and stretched my fuel. The first weekend I ran out about 300 yards from the harbor mouth and had to call the harbormaster to tow me in. Once was OK. But the same thing happened the very next weekend. By then the harbormaster, who fortunately was a friend, too, wasn't angry. In fact he asked if I was in any trouble and could he finish his lunch before he came out to get me. Then came the third week and that time I reached the fuel dock pretty much running on fumes. Like I said the tank was rated at 40 gallons. That fill-up took 41. There wasn't even anything left in the hoses.
Over four or five years I spent many happy hours with the whales and it was during that time I began to sense that connection. I noticed if I showed up in an area, they would often come to the boat, swim by on their sides looking at me, spy hop with their heads out of the water and there was even one quasi erotic event that still has me shaking my head. One day just cruising along with the pod a female came over and was swimming right along with the boat almost close enough to touch her. Then as if on a whim she rolled onto her back and swam along next to me belly up. She did this not once, but four or five times. I laughed but I had this sneaking sense some kind of seduction was going on there.
I graduated to larger tourist vessels and again feared I would lose them, but they still came to the boat. How close? Well, we had a low deck in the stern. One of the crew kids was hanging over the rail one day trying to spot the whales that were around the boat. All of a sudden one swam out from under the boat, came to the surface and exhaled all over him. Whale breath is not a pleasant odor. He came running up into the wheelhouse and asked if he could use my shower. I asked why and he told me that story. He asked again and I said no. This was a young man you could kid with. Looking disconcerted he asked why. I told him, "well, that whale is an endangered species and in order to wash the breath off you, you are going to have to file an environmental impact statement." The people in the wheelhouse just about died laughing. I let him take a shower and borrow some of my clothes.
On that boat we tried something a little more sophisticated; I began using a hydrophone. If conditions were right and the whales were staying in a small area, I could stop the engines and drop the microphone overboard and their calls and sounds played through the loudspeaker system on the boat. It was amazing to see a crowd of people oohing and ahhing over whales suddenly go absolutely silent as they realized they were hearing the whales as well as seeing them. I still have cassette tapes from that hydrophone and hope someday to digitize them as well.
I'm not sure if all this has convinced anyone of that connection with whales I felt. I am not convinced myself, but I remember at times I could feel it, something going back and forth between us. This all came up transferring these photographs and seeing in how many of them they are coming toward the boat, it makes me think maybe I was onto something.
There was one last incident. Chilling. Early on during the Exxon Valdez oil spill I was taking a crew of cleanup workers down to the ship. This was before the oil had spread all over hell and gone; it was still close to the ship. About five miles north of the ship we began to smell the oil. Ahead of the boat in the dim light of dusk, a killer whale suddenly rose out of the water, diving forward like porpoises do right across our course in front of us. I had the boat on autopilot and went out to say something to the owner who was sitting on the bow. I asked him if he saw that. He said, "yeah, I hope he doesn't get into the oil."
A thought hit me and I said, "What makes you think he wasn't trying to tell us the same thing?"
Here's the gallery. See if you can pick out the ones where the whales are heading toward the boat
The singing whales of Alaska's Prince William Sound
The singing whales of Alaska's Prince William Sound
Blackfish
October 27, 2013
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| A killer whale swims past the mouth of Columbia Bay in Alaska's Prince William Sound. |
It's taken a while to come around to the right frame of mind to watch the movie "Blackfish." It was bound to be upsetting. It's about Sea World and captive killer whales, focused largely on the death of Sea World trainer Dawn Brancheau in February 2010. After seeing the movie I am more convinced than ever that Sea World, or anyone else for that matter, should be shut down and never again allowed to hold a whale in captivity, Having read about the whales and Sea World and participating in the effort to stop them from capturing whales in Alaska's Prince William Sound, I sort of knew what to expect, but to tell the truth the situation is far worse than I had thought.
To begin with I have to take back what I have said about the trainers after watching several former trainers in tears during the movie discussing how the whales are treated. What came across was that for the most part the trainers were very idealistic young people enthralled with the whales and the idea of working with them, but who knew little about their natural history.
To compound that problem Sea World management consistently lied to them or misled them or just flat didn't tell them much about the whales. And, the new employees had no reason not to trust what the management was telling them, Sea World managers were supposed to be the experts. One striking segment focused on the lies in the Sea World spiel that the young people had to give customers thinking it was all true. One that stood out in the movie was that the whales only live to be 25 or 30 years old. That is the extreme age for whales in captivity and few of Sea World's captives live even that long; the average is more like 11 years. In the wild males live into their 70s and females can reach 100.
From the movie it is obvious these trainers whom I had expressed no sympathy for when they get batted around by the whales are almost as captive to Sea World management as the whales are. They aren't told about incidents with whales that are often termed accidents. They are fed false information and lured into believing they are safe in the water with the ocean's top-level predator. They also weren't told about specific whales with a history of attacking trainers. According to the movie, there have been at least 70 attacks in Sea World parks over the years, none of which the new trainers were told about.
Sea World went so far as to blame Dawn Brancheau for the whale's attack that killed her, claiming the whale had pulled her down by a pony tail in her hair which she shouldn't have had. According to the movie, autopsy results showed she was first pulled into the water by her arm.
Given all that, I have to pull back from blaming trainers and having no sympathy for them. Granted they should have learned more about the whales before they took the job but when I was that age I can totally see myself lured by the temptation to jump into that water, too.
At the end in the credits it said Sea World was invited to be interviewed and the offer was refused every time. In an ad for the movie on CNN, a Sea World written response said the movie was entirely one-sided. For one thing they could have presented their side, for a second, to my mind there is only one side to this issue.
Something else about the movie was bothersome. In all the arguments I had with Sea World people they often hauled out the tired claim that what they do advances the science around killer whales. Not one mention was made in the movie about any scientific knowledge Sea World has contributed. Sea World science claims have always been suspect as just a verbal front for the true mission of making money off killer whales. As a matter of fact the management actually concealed what they knew about killer whale behavior from their employees.
The Occupational Health and Safety Agency investigated Sea World after the death and the agency's eventual ruling was that trainers in the future had to be separated from the whales by a barrier. At the time the movie was made, Sea World had appealed that decision.
The OSHA decision is fine and a step in the direction of safety for the trainer. Now all we need to do is address the safety of the whales. Overall you leave the movie convinced that animals used to ranging over thousands of miles of ocean do not belong in concrete swimming pools.
#blackfish, #seaworld, #killer whales
Trolling SeaWorld
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| I have read research that states males can live to be 70 and females to 100. I first photographed that fellow with the wavy fin in 1977 and a friend photographed him last summer (2015). That's 39 years. It's not too difficult to imagine him an 18-year-old teenager in 1977 which would make him older than SeaWorld. Notice they're swimming toward the boat. |
Every time CNN shows the movie "Blackfish" SeaWorld fires up the PR team and floods Twitter with
their side of the story in 140-or-fewer-letter snippets. The foolishness of it is I think they have it on some kind of autodial because they seldom change, just the same old defenses with their unique corporate spin. The best part may be that it doesn't take nearly 140 characters to refute their justifications for keeping whales in captivity.
The only good side of it is trolling them and they caught me in a good mood tonight. At first I wondered about all the tweets and then I remembered "Blackfish" was on tonight. It only took a glass of wine or two to wind it up. Here are a few examples of what I am talking about:
SeaWorld @SeaWorld Wondering what it takes to be a killer whale trainer?
The links below will document most of the history. Each of those stories contains more links so you can go as deeply into this history with the whales as you want to go. There's this, SeaWorld, if you are watching, if you don't remember my name, I bet you remember Tim Jones et al v. Secretary of Commerce.
their side of the story in 140-or-fewer-letter snippets. The foolishness of it is I think they have it on some kind of autodial because they seldom change, just the same old defenses with their unique corporate spin. The best part may be that it doesn't take nearly 140 characters to refute their justifications for keeping whales in captivity.
The only good side of it is trolling them and they caught me in a good mood tonight. At first I wondered about all the tweets and then I remembered "Blackfish" was on tonight. It only took a glass of wine or two to wind it up. Here are a few examples of what I am talking about:
SeaWorld @SeaWorld Wondering what it takes to be a killer whale trainer?
SeaWorld @SeaWorld We have received a number of questions asking why we chose not to appear in Blackfish.
@tjonesak You had your chance to respond when the film was made. Kibitzing after the fact is so much sour grapes. How's your stock?
SeaWorld @SeaWorld We love our killer whales & want everyone to know the truth about our world-class care
@tjonesak
@SeaWorld You have to wonder how they can function at all in the wild without your world-class care. Oh, wait, they don't need it.
SeaWorld @SeaWorld Independent research shows SeaWorld’s killer whales live as long as wild killer whales
@tjonesak @SeaWorld You haven't been in business as long as some killer whales live in the wild.
There's a lot of history involved here and for me it dates back to 1983, earlier if you count my first encounters with killer whales in the late 1970s.
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| Here is a photo of the same whale made in 2015 and posted by my son on his facebok page. the whale is AE-14 in the Prince William Sound populaton. |
It gets old posting responses to the same tired defenses SeaWorld puts up every time "Blackfish" comes on, but it needs to be done, over and over again. I am getting old, but there are some young people out there already picking up the flag and fighting on (read, yes, you @Pilo2Lilo ). You are awesome.
The cool thing tonight was I picked up a couple more followers. Almost 40 now, lol. Not quite Lady Gaga numbers yet but I have a few more years left.
Labels: Alaska killer whales, blackfish, Killer whales, Sea World
Sorry, Sea World trainers, no sympathy
July 25, 2012
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| Is it possible whales just want to have fun? |
The original suit citation reads Jones et. al. v. the Secretary Commerce. That suit effectively prevented Sea World from capturing killer whales in Alaska waters. We won in the original court and again on Sea World's appeal. The secretary of Commerce was named because the suit was based on Sea World's obligation to supply an adequate environmental impact statement with that agency which was expensive and had to be done before one whale was touched.
If memory serves Sea World originally was granted permission to handle 92 whales in Prince William Sound and take up to ten into captivity. Though they said they were doing science, our read on it was it would allow them to examine that many whales in order to choose perfect specimens for their water parks.
The sound's resident population of up to 90 whales in five distinct pods generally swimming in a relatively small area, made for easy picking by the Sea World catchers.
A group of vessel operators pooled our money and initiated that suit. My name is first only because the attorney thought it best to have an individual rather than a business as the first complainant.
Besides helping initiate the suit, I almost had a fist fight with the chief capture supervisor for Sea World. At the time this arose, I was operating a fishing charter boat for a company out of Valdez. The business I worked for also operated a marine supply store. One day this fellow came into the store wanting to buy parts for a boat Sea World had left over the winter. It seemed during that time someone or several someones had poured sugar into the fuel tanks of that boat. Because we knew Sea World was operating there we had hung a sign in the store saying we reserved the right to refuse service to anyone. Anyone was Sea World.
When the alleged scientist was informed we wouldn’t be selling him any parts or supplies for his boat he asked who he could talk to, the clerk nodded at me. He asked why and I told him we were totally opposed to his effort to capture whales in Prince William Sound and even if it meant loss of business we were not going to aid that effort in any way. He looked at me and said, "Have you heard all our arguments?" I said, "Yes, have you heard all of ours?" He nodded and I said, "I guess we have nothing else to talk about, do we." I saw the vein in his neck bulge and his fists close tightly and prepared myself. I could see the change in his eyes, though, and he punched his own knees where he was sitting, stood up and stormed out of the place.
When the issue first came up I did some research into Sea World's handling of killer whales and learned that captured whales usually acted docile and do their tricks for two or three years. After that they tended to start pushing their trainers around and on occasion attacking them, and thus became useless for display purposes. I also learned the whales which can live up to 100 years in the wild, seldom lived beyond 11 years in captivity.
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| Coming at you, boy. |
The little guy doesn't often win any more, but for once we prevailed and saved at least our whales from that fate.
Since that time, it's my understanding that Sea World developed an effective breeding program among their captive whales. I suppose that is better than taking them from the wild, but even if they have never experienced freedom, that confinement is no way to treat a whale.
Now Sea World has another killer whale issue before the U.S. courts. Apparently the Occupational Safety and Heath Agency (OSHA) thinks working conditions in Sea World's whale pools are unsafe. A video was played in court showing what was presumed to be a killer whale attacking a trainer. In the short accompanying story, it is stated that same whale attacked that same trainer twice before. Now OSHA wants Sea World to make it safer for the trainers.
The hell with that. How about let's make it safer for the whales. The trainer was there by choice. The whale wasn't. The trainer has to know he is going into a confined space with the top predator in the ocean food chain. What could possibly go wrong there? I watched the video a couple of times and if it wasn't slowed down, it seemed more like the whale was just exercising some muscle. I have seen a killer whale take down a thousand-pound sea lion and, believe me, it was a lot more violent and bloody than what shows in this video.
Maybe because it was probably bred and raised in captivity, the whale doesn't know how. That's then fortunate for the trainer, but not the whale because it probably can't be released into the wild.
So how are they going to make it safer for Sea World trainers? I have some ideas they won't like. Basically, stop confining whales in swimming pools. These are animals that range over thousands of miles of ocean and it is a travesty to confine them the way Sea World does. I suspect they might suggest those shark-repelling bang sticks if they aren't using them already. What a shame that would be.
We can only wait for the outcome of the trial. In the meantime maybe just put a sign up by the pool, an ancient Oriental warning:
"If you walk into the tiger cage, expect to be eaten."
After seeing the movie "Blackfish," I felt I had to take a step back from some of this. Here's the link.
__________
Here's the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals decisions stopping the Prince William Sound whale capture.
After Japanese whaling decision, time to ask Sea World where's the science?
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| A whale and calf swim free in Prince William Sound. |
So the International Court of Justice ruled the Japanese whaling industry has nothing to do with science and ordered the hunts stopped. So far Japan says the country’s hunters will abide by the decision.
Now, if the pretense of doing science is grounds for abolishing cruelty to whales, is Sea World far behind? That's the excuse the amusement park's executives use most often to rationalize holding whales in swimming pools. Perhaps a challenge along the same lines as the Japanese court case would succeed. After all, even if they do produce a little science, the main job of Sea World is to make money off the display of killer whales and other marine mammals. Perhaps they could be subpoenaed to produce proof of any scientific advancement made at their shows.
Of course, any science they can produce is based on whales in captivity not in the wild, so is immediately suspect. Now a new revelation has come to light that could further compromise any science produced.
According to the website The Dodo. com, Sea World has admitted giving anti-anxiety drugs to the whales in their amusement parks. Specifically the drug is benzodiazepines, which includes human compounds commonly named Valium and Xanax. Also according to the website, quoting animal advocates, the drugs are used to ensure stable mental health, in mental stress caused by captivity. There's another solution to that mental stress, of course: freedom.
Sea World defended the practice.
The charge this time emerged during a lawsuit between Sea World and Marineland over the handling of a killer whale transported between the two. The drug use came to light in an affidavit provided by Lanny Cornell who was fired by Sea World in 1987 after an accident in which a Sea World employee was seriously injured by a killer wale in one of the company's theaters. The dates seem right and if memory serves me Lanny Cornell is the fellow I almost had a fist fight with in Valdez Alaska, over the company's plan to capture killer whales in Prince William Sound. But that's another story.
Earlier the Dodo had reported Sea World often used diazepam (valium) on whales to ease the stress when mothers were separated from calves. Incidentally that article documents all incidents of those separations.
So, on the excuse of furtherance of science, Sea World is actually drugging the whales it holds so they will function better as performers in their expensive shows. How is science furthered by that? How does that help the whales in general, particularly the ones who still enjoy their freedom?
Perhaps it is time to challenge Sea World on the same basis as Australia challenged Japan's whaling: Where's the science?
About all you can say for Sea World at this point is at least, unlike the Japanese, they are not killing the whales, not on purpose anyway.
Japan cancels whale hunt for first time in 25 years
Japan cancels whale hunt for first time in 25 years
Singing whales of Alaska's Prince William Sound
Back when I had to do such things I always thought it was a good day when it started with a mechanical success. Well, today, it may have taken a good part of the afternoon, but my first project turned out to be a computer success.
A couple of days ago I managed to transfer all the killer whale calls I recorded on cassettes in Prince William Sound to digital. Since then it has been one experiment after another to somehow get those sounds published online. After several attempts at trying to publish the raw audio, I gave up and started playing with iMovie, and voila, on only the third attempt, connected the gallery of whale photos with one tape of the best of the sounds recorded and this is it. I hope it is enjoyed.
And, yes, I know a lot of the photos are a little fuzzy. In my defense, first they are all taken from the moving platform of a boat and I always had to drive the boat and make sure other people got good photos and all I could do for the most part is quick shots out the wheelhouse door.
Here are links to other posts about the whales on this blog:
Whale watching: Who's watching whom?
Sorry, Sea World trainers, no sympathy
The singing whales of Alaska's Prince William Sound
Back when I had to do such things I always thought it was a good day when it started with a mechanical success. Well, today, it may have taken a good part of the afternoon, but my first project turned out to be a computer success.
A couple of days ago I managed to transfer all the killer whale calls I recorded on cassettes in Prince William Sound to digital. Since then it has been one experiment after another to somehow get those sounds published online. After several attempts at trying to publish the raw audio, I gave up and started playing with iMovie, and voila, on only the third attempt, connected the gallery of whale photos with one tape of the best of the sounds recorded and this is it. I hope it is enjoyed.
And, yes, I know a lot of the photos are a little fuzzy. In my defense, first they are all taken from the moving platform of a boat and I always had to drive the boat and make sure other people got good photos and all I could do for the most part is quick shots out the wheelhouse door.
Here are links to other posts about the whales on this blog:
Whale watching: Who's watching whom?
Sorry, Sea World trainers, no sympathy
Labels: Alaska killer whales, killer whale sounds, Killer whales, orcas, Prince William Sound, video
Alaska fisherman has an amazing encounter with Dall porpoises
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Three Dall porpoises play around the bow of a tour boat in
Alaska's Prince William Sound.
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August 15, 2015During the past couple of weeks there have been two stories circulating on the Internet about whales tangled in garbage or fishing gear approaching boats as if to ask for help getting rid of it. In both cases folks were able to remove that tangling material.
The stories reminded me of another a friend told me several years ago. Mike Lopez seined for salmon for years in Alaska's Prince William Sound. Like most fishermen now and then he would find marine mammals tangled in his gear. One such encounter happened to another friend. When his crew hauled their net, a sea otter came up with the salmon to be dumped unceremoniously onto the deck. According to that friend the otter regained its feet, snarled and then backed the whole crew against the house before finding the gunwale and jumping overboard.
The stories reminded me of another a friend told me several years ago. Mike Lopez seined for salmon for years in Alaska's Prince William Sound. Like most fishermen now and then he would find marine mammals tangled in his gear. One such encounter happened to another friend. When his crew hauled their net, a sea otter came up with the salmon to be dumped unceremoniously onto the deck. According to that friend the otter regained its feet, snarled and then backed the whole crew against the house before finding the gunwale and jumping overboard.
Mike's story is even better. In seining, you lay your net out behind the boat, but unlike gillnetting where fish get stuck in the net itself, the seine is closed first in a circle at the top and tightly at the bottom and then the fish are hoisted onto the boat. There isn't a whole lot of bycatch in that kind of fishing.
So the way Mike told it, he and his crew had set their net out but before they closed it six Dall porpoises swam inside the area and became entangled in the netting. This is not a good situation for fishermen or for porpoises. Mike saw the porpoises thrashing around in the water, fighting the net, attempting to free themselves.
He took a skiff and drove it along the net until he reached the first porpoise. He approached the animal carefully trying not to look threatening. When he was close enough he caught a piece of the netting and immediately the porpoise stopped thrashing. According to Mike it floated docilely on the surface and allowed him to remove the net. That porpoise swam away from the net by remained close by.
Mike looked down the line and to his amazement all of the other porpoises had stopped their movements. The way he described it, they too floated on the surface as if patiently waiting for him to free them as well. He was able to pull himself along the cork line to each porpoise in turn while the others waited for him to untangle them too. In time he set all six free with no apparent injury.
Thinking back on it now, in telling the story he never once mentioned what damage they might have done to his seine, only that he was happy he was able to free them. Seines aren't cheap and if in addition to the cost of repairs or replacement Mike lost a few days fishing during the short salmon seine season, that adventure could have cost him a considerable amount of money.
Still in the telling it was about the porpoises, not the money and six porpoises survived what could easily have been a deadly encounter.
Labels: alaska, commercial fishing, Dall porpoise, marine mammals, oceans, Prince William Sound,salmon, seine
A whale of an argument remains unresolved
November 22, 2014
Have you ever been involved in an argument that ended unsatisfactorily and then lingered in your mind, maybe for years, unresolved? This post is an attempt to resolve one of those. It came up as a memory after seeing this item about sei whales on Facebook the other day.
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| Sei whale photo by Christin Khan on the Mission Blue FB page. |
The Sei Whale is the THIRD LARGEST baleen whale and one of the FASTEST of all cetaceans: it can sprint up to 50 kilometers per hour! They're also ENDANGERED, having been hunted to near extinction during humanity's whaling days. (Japan still hunts them, by the way.) –From the Mission Blue Facebook page.
It began off the coast of California a couple of days out from San Francisco Bay. On a dark gray afternoon we spotted a whale resting on the surface several hundred feet from the boat. The visual silhouette indicated one of the larger baleen whales, the long back with an unnaturally small dorsal fin in the rear third of the body. From experience, looking at it, I guessed a fin whale or a sei whale while others on the boat said it was a blue whale, one outside my experience.
In time and very authoritatively two people decided it was a blue whale and that was that. At the time to a younger person I suggested it could be a fin whale or a sei whale. One of these two authorities overheard me and said it could not be sei whale and I was dead wrong. Now I hadn’t said it was definitely a sei whale, the way this former friend had decided it was a blue whale. I just said it could have been and just as easily could have been a blue or a fin whale. No, it cannot be a sei whale, he said. Why not, I asked. To that he said this wasn't sei whale habitat.
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| Sei whale range from the American Cetacean Society |
Now, I knew better than that. Years earlier a friend and I had had almost the same discussion. We saw a similar whale from a boat I was operating in Alaska waters and most people identified it as a fin whale, but this one fellow suggested it could be a sei whale. I had never heard of sei whales, so I looked them up. What I learned was they have the same shape and almost the same size as a fin whale, averaging only about five feet shorter. According to my source book, they are very difficult to differentiate from fin whales and the only way is in how they hold their tail flukes when they dive. Also according to that book, A Sea Guide to the Whales of the World by Lyall Watson, sei whales are found throughout all the world's oceans except the extreme Arctic and Antarctic waters.
None of that mattered to this guy who in front of a whole bunch of people told me I was wrong and to boot, stupid for thinking what I was thinking. At one point he said he didn't think sei whales went into Prince William Sound, a place we both had sailed in, but was about 2,000 miles north of us at the time. But then in frustration to my not bending down in homage and agreement he said very authoritatively that he had spent years in the Antarctic and there were no sei whales there. What that had to do with whales in the mid latitudes I don't know, but by that time I was embarrassed and fed up. I told him I didn't care if he had spent years on the moon, sei whales certainly could be where we were and this could have been a sei whale, and walked away. There comes a time when you just have to cash in your chips and get out any way you can.
Still that argument has lingered in my mind for the four or so years since it happened and every time I see the mention of a sei whale it comes up. I guess what bothers me is that this person who has since lost my friendship, had so little disregard for me or my knowledge or intellect that he could tell me in front of a bunch of people we barely knew that I was ignorant and stupid. I did eventually tell him he was wrong about sei whales but I never said absolutely that this whale was one, only that it could have been one and that he and others had identified it as a blue whale because they wanted it to be blue whale. They had wished it so.
In the long run it is silly and immature to let oneself be dragged into such an argument and to let that argument linger as anger in the psyche for so long. Perhaps just venting here will help let it go. And by the way, I will brook no arguments over this post; as they say on Facebook, LOL.
And perhaps for those who have read this far, you are now aware of yet another species of great whales endangered on the high seas.
I guess the southern tip of Chile doesn't count as being near Antarctica
I guess the southern tip of Chile doesn't count as being near Antarctica
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