What are the chances of a huge whale getting stuck on the front of a huge ship? And even more, what are the chances that the huge whale would be a rare species?Will wonders never cease? Check out this story at BBC News, one of my favorite sources of world news:
"A rare whale was discovered wedged on to the bow of a cruise ship when it docked in a Canadian port.
The 70ft fin whale, a threatened species in Canada, was found when the Sapphire Princess docked at the Port of Vancouver, the cruise company said.
It said it had "strict whale avoidance" measures and it was unclear where, when or how the whale became stuck.
The fisheries department will need to conduct a post-mortem examination to find out if the whale was dead or alive before the collision.
According to the Vancouver Star, two tugboats were hired by the fisheries department to nudge the whale from the bow.
It was then moved to a barge."
I have been on a few cruises, none on Princess Cruise Lines, and those cruise ships are very very large, but from the photo it looks like the whale was pretty good size too. It boggles my mind how something as immense as the whale could have hit the ship and not be felt or noticed with all the tracking equipment on the ship. But it did happen. For some reason when I read this news article I hurt for the whale, a wonder of a sea animal who is the main attraction of whale watching enthusiasts. I hope the whale died peacefully and was not in distress. Maybe that is wishful thinking.
9 comments:
I would think that a live whale would have avoided a ship! It was probably already dead! I hope
a thing like that can really ruin a whales day. I hope it was already dead too and did not suffer.
Hey Technobabe thanks for commenting on my blog. Always nice to have a new reader.
That is the wildest thing I've ever heard of! I'm just hoping it was already dead. If you hear the post-mortem results, let us know.
I would think it was dead too, otherwise you would think there would have been some kind of a struggle at least alerting someone on the boat. Curious to hear what happens.
i would hope the whale was dead. you would think someone would have felt a bit of a lag or drag. or like you said some buzzer would have gone off. asleep at the wheel maybe?
Nice 'whale avoidance measures'.
Sad and interesting. I'll just add this to the collection of true whale stories I tell my students every year when we're studying whales.
Awww, the poor whale! Hopefully it was dead before it got stuck and didn't suffer. I agree, you'd think someone on the ship would have noticed something...
That is a sad story.
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