Browsing: Whales

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Whale Breaches Next to Small Boat. Pictures, Video

Here are amazing pictures and a video of a whale breaching next to a small center console, with an explanation of how the photographers captured the images. Read about it in this story from PetaPixel: A photographer was on a whale-watching trip when he unexpectedly captured incredible photos of a large humpback whale exploding out of the water right next to an unsuspecting fisherman on his boat. Photographer Douglas Croft was in California’s Monterey Bay on April 27th back in 2019 when the memorable moment occurred. “It was quite exciting! Salmon season coincides with the time when humpbacks are returning…

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Whale Said To Hit Boat; Coast Guard Rescues 5

It takes a lot to punch a hole in a Grady-White. I know. I’ve been on Gradys in all kinds of conditions over a period of many, many years, cruising and fishing on waters as far apart as Florida and Alaska. I’ve also seen how they’re made in the factory in North Carolina; they’re built like battleships. But, according to this story from GoLocal in Providence, Rhode Island, a whale managed to punch a hole in a Grady’s hull about ten miles off Block Island. Read the story here: Boat Allegedly Hit by Whale Off Block Island; Coast Guard Rescues Five From…

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$1.5 million for Whale Vomit?

The crew of a fishing boat from Yemen just caught $1.5 million worth of whale vomit – actually ambergris, which the Natural History Museum in London says is often called “floating gold” because it’s so rare. Once it’s cleaned up, ambergris is used to make high-end perfume last longer; Chanel and Lanvin are reported to use it to this day. The 35 impoverished Yemeni fishermen were working in the Gulf of Aden when they hauled up a sperm whale carcass. As they towed it back to port, they realized they might have something valuable because it smelled awful. Ambergris is…

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Whale Swallows Cape Cod Diver, Spits Him Out

A lobster diver in Provincetown, Massachusetts, was swallowed by a humpback whale recently but he survived with just minor injuries. “I was completely inside,” the lobsterman, Michael Packard, 56, told the Cape Cod Times. Packard, a veteran diver from Wellfleet, was on his second dive of the day just before 8 in the morning. He was working from the boat Ja’n J, off Herring Beach Cove. A fleet of other boats were fishing for striped bass nearby. A commercial lobster diver, Packard dove down. When he was about ten feet from the bottom, he said, “All of a sudden, I…

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Starving Gray Whale Lost in the Med

By Alexandre Minguez (Reuters) A young grey whale lost in the Mediterranean, thousands of miles away from its natural habitat in the Pacific ocean, is desperately seeking its way home, but biologists are worried it may not survive. Grey whales normally migrate along the U.S. west coast, but biologists think that with global warming opening northern routes, the whale became lost and swam into the Atlantic ocean via the Arctic. Named Wally by biologists, the whale is around two years old and eight meters (26.25 ft) long, but his rapid weight loss is causing concern as he cannot find the…

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U.S. Navy Finds New Species of Beaked Whale

The Navy says it has found a new species of beaked whale off the coast of Baja, Mexico. Read the Navy’s story here: From Naval Sea Systems Command Public Affairs Researchers funded by the Naval Sea Systems Command Monitoring Program believe they have discovered a new species of beaked whale in the waters off Mexico’s Baja Peninsula. NAVSEA funded the expedition to determine the source of a unique beaked whale vocalization near a Navy test area in Southern California thought to have come from a Perrin’s beaked whale. Researchers from the U.S. Navy and Mexico’s National Commission of Natural Protected…

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Whale Watching Aboard Idyll Time in Alaska

It’s the end of the season for Jeff and Susie Parker on Idyll Time, their Kadey-Krogen 48 North Sea Trawler, up in Petersburg, Alaska. They just posted their last wildlife pictures, of whales this time, that they took earlier this month in Frederick Sound for their blog idylltime.com. The Parkers, from Chattanooga, Tennessee, certainly qualify as veteran cruisers. After they bought Idyll Time new in 2006, they cruised up and down the East Coast, completed the Great Loop, and did the ICW so many times that they said they were getting bored. So two years ago they shipped the boat to…

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Dozens of Massive Blue Whales Feasting in the Farallons

Dozens of blue whales, the largest creatures on earth – ever – have been feeding off the Farallon Islands, about 30 miles west of San Francisco. In one hour-long period, scientists counted 47 of the animals there, the largest group seen in Northern California since they started keeping records in 1968. Beautiful creatures with backs that seen to shine metallic blue when they surface, blue whales can grow to be more than 90 feet long and weigh more than 150,000 pounds. (The largest ever measured was 98 feet long and weighed 346,000 pounds.) They are larger than a Boeing 737-800…

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Captive Whales Get New Retirement Home in Canada

There are now more than 300 captive beluga whales and 60 orcas living out their days in aquariums and entertainment parks around the world. Now they have a place to go for their golden years. The Whale Sanctuary Project, based in Utah, just announced it is creating a virtual whale retirement home in 100 acres of a sheltered bay in Port Hilford, about 125 miles north of Halifax in Nova Scotia. It says it should be ready for the first whales by the end of 2021, and the whale retirement community will be safe with a meal plan that’s heavy…

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Giant Male Whale Protects Mother and Calf from Boat

A giant male humpback whale breached in front of a small sailing catamaran off Hawaii, flinging himself out of the water, perhaps in an effort to warn the sailors away from a nearby calf and its mother. The 40-feet-long, 22-ton whale almost crushed the catamaran, sailing off Kaanapali Beach on the northwest coast of Maui. No one on the cat was injured. The incident was filmed by Don McLeish, 67 and retired, who was following the whales on his blue Zodiac. He saw the male escorting the mother and the baby, and then saw the catamaran almost on a collision…