(Photo courtesy of Janet Neilson/National Park Service, taken under the authority of Scientific Research Permit #27027 issued by NOAA Fisheries)
A humpback whale was severely injured in Glacier Bay. National Park Service staff say they first saw the injury on Friday, and it is the result of an apparent collision with a vessel. They don’t know if the whale will survive.
Janet Neilson, a marine biologist at Glacier Bay National Park, saw the adult humpback identified as #2583 near Willoughby Island with a fresh, 1-foot deep gash behind its dorsal fin. She thinks it was caused by a propeller.
She said this is the most severe injury she’s seen on a humpback whale in her nearly 30 years of studying them. But she said her colleague saw the injured whale diving and feeding with other whales on Wednesday.
“It’s promising that it’s behaving normally and diving, so it clearly didn’t do any major damage to any of the vertebrae,” Neilson said.
Matthew Cahill, a Public Affairs Officer at Glacier Bay National Park, said that whale strikes within Glacier Bay are rare, but there have been several recent cases in nearby Icy Strait and Cross Sound. Last week, another adult humpback whale was seen with a propeller wound near Pleasant Island. Last year, boats killed two whales in waters beyond park boundaries.
And with whale strikes, Cahill said the size of the wound indicates the size of the boat. In this case, it would be a big one.
“It’s not necessarily a commercial or a private vessel, but it’s a large vessel, no matter what,” he said.
Whales are protected under the federal Marine Mammal Protection Act. The National Park Service aims to prevent whale strikes by restricting the number of boats that can enter Glacier Bay. Neilson said that 25 private vessels, two large cruise ships, three tour vessels and six charter vessels are allowed in each day during the summer.
The park also limits where and how fast boats can move through parts of the bay during the humpbacks’ peak feeding season. Those temporary rules create what are called ‘whale waters’ and they’re issued based on where biologists are seeing whale activity.
Last week the park announced a 13-knot speed limit in the area where the injured whale was seen. Neilson estimates that there are about 30 whales feeding in that area.
The park’s rules are more strict than those that apply to waters beyond the park boundary. Boats in park waters can’t approach a whale within a quarter of a nautical mile and must stay a mile from shore in the lower bay, where feeding is concentrated.
National Park Service officials don’t have any leads on who hit the whale. They’re asking anyone with information to contact the park at (907) 697-2230.
Correction: National Park staff do not know what day the whale was injured.
