It’s been long overdue. Nice to see that the Feds are finally putting money into enforcement of the protection zone, rather than sitting back and hoping for good behavior. I would agree with the assessment that it’s likely recreational boaters (think of charters coming from all over) rather than locals or the whale watching industry. I’ve met a lot of whale watching businesspeople and they are smart enough to know that crowding the whales can lead to them losing their businesses.
Against a backdrop of rocky bluffs, a pod of orcas jumped out of the emerald waters of the Puget Sound before splashing their massive black-and-white bodies back into the water. Shadowing the whales on a recent afternoon were several recreational and commercial whale-watching boats that ferry people out to watch the orcas breach, one of nature’s most impressive spectacles. But the combination of boats and whales has state and federal authorities worried now that the Southern Resident pod of killer whales has four new calves. Manuel Valdes reports. (Associated Press)
http://phys.org/news/2015-09-patrols-boaters-line-killer-whales.html
Filed under: Puget Sound | Tagged: orcas, Puget Sound, whale watching, whales | Comments Off on Patrols keep US boaters in line, protect killer whales- AP
