NOAA today announced new regulations to protect killer whales in inland waters of Washington State from the effects of various vessel activities. The new regulations have two parts:
1. vessels must not approach any killer whale within 200 yards (up from 100 yards)
2. vessels must stay out of the path of oncoming whales out to 400 yards.
The new regulations go into effect 30 days after the Federal Register notice publishes. We’re working with our partners to educate boaters about the new regulations on and off the water.
It is unclear how this will work. Will people who have individual whales approach them be fined? If you start 200 yards away and the whales come closer, is it appropriate to run and flee to stay 200 yards off (which is impossible) or do you need to shut down your engine (currently it is to disengage your transmission)? And what if it is unsafe to do so at the time, such as when running through a narrow passage with the tide? (think Cattle Pass for example). Can a person even see a whale at 400 yards in poor conditions? etc.
What this sounds like to me is that we are hearing the moneyed interests on the San Juan’s who own modern castles along these shores who have been fighting having the whale watch boats in front of their homes for many years. A cynical person could think that they managed to pay off the right people to get the job done. I say this having had read the testimony last year as the two sides presented testimony to NOAA, and it was clear how unclear the distance issue actually was. There is no clear science that was presented on this issue, just supposition. In fact, the science that was presented was clear that there was no known issues that they could actually prove that boats inside these boundaries were having any effect at all. You could just as easily argue that because whale numbers are rising, that the boats are having a beneficial effect. And so it goes. Well, we’ll just have to see what kind of enforcement that NOAA funds for this. The only good news is that the enforcement has been incredibly missing to date, and is unlikely to find any funding in the current budget crisis.