Miss-Delectable
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Humpback whales likely deaf to approaching boats: Alaska Newsreader | Alaska news at adn.com
Southeast Alaska is having a humpback whale population boom: As many as 5,000 of them now feed in Southeast waters each summer. That might be the main reason there seem to be more collisions between humpbacks and boats, reports KFSK in Petersburg. But officials say boaters can help the situation by realizing that humpbacks can't hear vessels very well, if at all.
Says National Park Service wildlife biologist Janet Neilson: "A lot of people are under the perception that humpback whales and other baleen whales can detect vessels on the water through echo-location or sonar, but baleen whales do not have the ability to echo-locate like toothed whales. So they're often relying on passive hearing and they do have a difficult time detecting fast-moving vessels because they did not evolve in an environment with fast-moving underwater sound. So it's difficult for them to locate the sound. So the best thing to do is slow down and keep a sharp lookout."
Neilson, co-author of a study on whale strikes, says because many whale strikes are unreported, it's hard to tell if collisions are increasing. Since 1978, 109 collisions have been reported.
A collision with a whale can be heart-stopping for those aboard smaller boats. KFSK tells the story of a collision between the yacht Loreley and a humpback in June.
"Everything was thrown forward. All drawers, forward-facing opened up. We came to a halt, seemingly within a boat length. We just didn't know what to think. I immediately looked at the depth sounder thinking we hit a reef or a rock, but we were in Chatham Strait and the depths were greater than 1000 ft."
That was the Loreley's owner, Viktor Grabner. He rushed to the engine room to check for leaks. No visible damage. Up in the wheelhouse, his wife Diane searched for the cause of their abrupt stop. A humpback whale surfaced and flipped a bloody tail at the boat.
"It didn't even occur to me that we could have hit a whale."
Southeast Alaska is having a humpback whale population boom: As many as 5,000 of them now feed in Southeast waters each summer. That might be the main reason there seem to be more collisions between humpbacks and boats, reports KFSK in Petersburg. But officials say boaters can help the situation by realizing that humpbacks can't hear vessels very well, if at all.
Says National Park Service wildlife biologist Janet Neilson: "A lot of people are under the perception that humpback whales and other baleen whales can detect vessels on the water through echo-location or sonar, but baleen whales do not have the ability to echo-locate like toothed whales. So they're often relying on passive hearing and they do have a difficult time detecting fast-moving vessels because they did not evolve in an environment with fast-moving underwater sound. So it's difficult for them to locate the sound. So the best thing to do is slow down and keep a sharp lookout."
Neilson, co-author of a study on whale strikes, says because many whale strikes are unreported, it's hard to tell if collisions are increasing. Since 1978, 109 collisions have been reported.
A collision with a whale can be heart-stopping for those aboard smaller boats. KFSK tells the story of a collision between the yacht Loreley and a humpback in June.
"Everything was thrown forward. All drawers, forward-facing opened up. We came to a halt, seemingly within a boat length. We just didn't know what to think. I immediately looked at the depth sounder thinking we hit a reef or a rock, but we were in Chatham Strait and the depths were greater than 1000 ft."
That was the Loreley's owner, Viktor Grabner. He rushed to the engine room to check for leaks. No visible damage. Up in the wheelhouse, his wife Diane searched for the cause of their abrupt stop. A humpback whale surfaced and flipped a bloody tail at the boat.
"It didn't even occur to me that we could have hit a whale."
