Killing whales loudly, with their song
by Eric Lucas
If it’s August, whales are suffering.
I live on America’s Pacific Coast, a world-famous summertime visitor destination where hordes of ordinary, well-meaning people harass, torment and torture some of the world’s most charismatic wild creatures. The whales that ply our seas—especially the breathtaking, much-loved orcas of inland Northwest waters—wake up each morning, June through September, to the approaching howl of boat engines. They spend their days dodging a huge fleet of boats packed with googoo-eyed tourists who think they are at a Roller Derby match, an impression exacerbated by tour-boat operators who “honor” their so-called voluntary guidelines just like athletes do steroids prohibitions.
There are less than 100 Puget Sound orcas left. Holdovers from the days this inland sea wasn’t an exurban pond, they forage in waters fouled with urban runoff and toxic contaminants; they chase down remnants of our once-massive salmon runs, now reduced to trickles of minnows; they come up for air amid the whale-watch hordes to breathe clouds of engine exhaust.
And, underwater, all day, they listen to unspeakable nonstop caterwauling.
“Like a rocket ship taking off,” reports a Canadian scientific researcher who studied the noise impacts of whale-watching on the industry’s victims. He hung a hydrophone in the water and measured the decibels.
Try to imagine life, 10 hours a day, with a hundred or so helicopters buzzing a few feet overhead. That’s what it’s like for Puget Sound orcas.
This has to stop.
Till now the whole topic has been the elephant in the room that almost no-one will discuss. Several of my previous commentaries on the issue have earned me threats from tour-boat operators—they’ll sue me for interfering with their business. One dare not question the golden goose, and whale watching is, by some estimates, a billion-dollar industry in 87 countries worldwide. In Washington state and British Columbia, it is an enormously popular visitor activity that tourism officials and marine scientists privately concede is way out of hand. Publicly, none wants to upset the apple cart. It brings in well over $100 million a year along the US/Canadian Pacific border.
And I want to ban this?
Not even the hydrophone researcher agrees with that. “There’s a huge public demand for whale watching. The experience gives the average visitor a sense of the beauty and value of these animals.”
That, of course, is a spiffy argument for Las Vegas strip clubs, not to dismiss a well-meaning scientist’s hedging. But strippers are voluntary show animals; orcas are just trying to live in their home.
Fence-straddling advocates argue that greater restrictions and controls—licensing tour operators, for instance—would solve the problem. But if you have witnessed the daily frenzy on Northwest waters, restrictions seem likely to work as well as those now-infamous steroid controls in sports. Whale-watch operators already have guidelines—boats must not approach closer than 100 yards, for instance. That’s adequate? Imagine your potential enjoyment of a rocket ship taking off 100 yards away. Federal officials have proposed a new limit of 200 yards, which is pretty much like requiring frat boys to keep their beer-drinking down to one gallon a night instead of two.
Chasing is barred, too—a dreadful inconvenience that tour operators duck easily by positioning themselves in the channel ahead of the orca pods, then waiting for them to swim up. Once the whales are past, they floor the throttle on their outboards and loop around to take up new positions ahead of the whales. This is called “leapfrogging.” I’ve witnessed it myself while watching from on shore on San Juan Island. The new proposed rules would bar this, too, and I’m sure the FBI will be hauling violators in regularly.
The saddest part of all this is that the tourists who support the industry doubtless think they are harmlessly expanding their grasp of the natural world, just as Johnny, Suzy and Mom & Dad once thought it was great to walk up to specimen redwoods and hug them. Some of those trees are dead now, their roots trampled by love. The same fate awaits orcas.
It’s true that many other challenges must be solved to save these wonderful creatures: Salmon runs are disappearing. The waters are poisoned. Fixing these issues is an enormous challenge that may be beyond us.
But overlooking the noise impact of whale watching is like handing a cigarette to an advanced stage emphysema patient in a wheelchair. Yes, he’s going to die soon, anyway. No thoughtful person can abet smoking even so.
“It’s a BLAST!” say promos for whale watch operators. Yes, it is, a daily dose of sticks of dynamite tossed in the midst of Northwest orcas.
I’ve seen whales, orcas and dolphins dozens of times in my life, yet I have not once gone whale watching. It’s time for the federal governments charged with protecting these animals to step in, but that’s unlikely. So anyone with a conscience should not patronize the tour operators. Watch from shore. Quietly.
Eric Lucas is an international travel and business writer who lives in Seattle; to learn more, visit his website, www.TrailNot4Sissies.com.
8 Comments
Reader Comments (8)
Eric,
Thank you for writing this article about the devastating effects of whale watching. Well-meaning people unwittingly doing harm to the animals they are admiring is a sad commentary not only on our regulations but on how disconnected people are from the effects of their own actions. You are a voice in the wilderness and I hope you can find a way to bring articles like this one to a broad audience.
The irony here? Check the google ads on the right ride of the screen. They are advertising whale watching.
Eric,
I love this piece. As always, your observations and insights are far from the usual travel voice.
I did go whale watching in the San Juan's, years ago, and I remember it not feeling right.
The other day, though, I was listening to a NPR interview with a marine biologist discusses the interactions between man and gray whales in Baja. Initially, the biologist had gone down there to 'protect' the whales and their offspring but ended up amazed by to discover that it was the whales themselves that sought out the interactions.
It can be difficult as a tourist to know what's right. In this case the biologist seemed to believe that the balance of power was still in the whales' favor. In the San Juan's, it didn't feel that way to me and doesn't sound like a good thing.
Cheers,
Ellen
Allen,
Yikes on the google ads. The search engines see the keywords 'whale watching' and match it. Tried adding the keyword tag 'ban whale watching', we'll see what happens. Regardless, I don't think they'll be seeing many click-thrus on this one.
Will try to fix it, or, take down the feed.
As always, thanks for joining the dialogue.
Cheers,
Ellen
Ellen,
I wanted to address your comment from the Baja whale experience. I have myself had the same experience up in BC, with humpback whales. There are some significant differences, to my understanding (having not been to Baja, though I'd like to):
-Baja is a World Heritage Site and the Mexican government keeps things better in hand there--no vast flotillas of Zodiacs screaming out into the Gulf every morning to chase whales all day.
-Humpbacks and grays are famously curious, whereas orcas are predators trying to find salmon.
-Orcas travel in large family groups (pods) while humpbacks and grays are more scattered. The NW whale watch boats use high tech devices to find the orca pods each morning, apprise each other by radio, and attack.
Best,
Eric
Thanks for this piece. I hope you find a way to get the message out to a wider audience. If nothing else, it helps to raise our consciousness about the ways in which we interact with the environment.
Nancy
One thing you have to say for whale watches-- the Orcas are viewed on their own, though perhaps compromised, turf. While their migrations might be affected by the zodiacs, they still get to travel miles every day and communicate with their pods. It sure beats Sea World, where Orcas are stuffed in concrete tanks three or four times their own body lengths, with their cries echoing off the walls.
Interestingly enough, I saw the movie The Cove last night. Nothing is dirtier than Sea World and these so-called "swim with dolphins" enterprises, many of whom get their sea mammals from a very dirty, bloody enterprise in Japan.
While I suppose you could argue that neither whale watches nor Sea World should exist, I'm unsure either will go away. Given the choice I'd rather see whale watches continue.
Never liked the idea of whale watching for the very reasons you've outlined in your piece. Recently I had a conversation with the director of the bioacoustic program at Cornell's Lab of Ornithology about this very topic. He has spent a lifetime recording all different species of whale and advising government agencies about regulating the noise pollution in the ocean. It's all very sad on a most basic level.
the whale watching is a crime should be prosecuted all over the world. It should be banned. I am glad somebody like you wrote about it. In my state where i live it is a good business people pay a lot of money to go whale watching. I always cursed them out. please leave the wild alone. this the same nuisance for the whale when a grizzly bear came close to your home. you call everybody to get rid of it. When you see a croc in your living room. If somebody can go whale watching you should not get upset when those things happen to you.