Fines Are Merited for Whale Harassers : While People Watch the Magnificent Creatures, Coast Guard Is Watching Out for Them

One of the magnificent, biologically ordained joys of the season is the return of the Pacific gray whales to the waters off Southern California. Board a whale-watching boat, head to sea, and you’re almost guaranteed the sight of the mammoth mammals surfacing and diving alongside.

The whales migrate 12,000 miles north from Mexico to the Arctic between January and May each year. Unfortunately, some operators of jet skis and small private boats have gotten too close to the whales recently. Marine biologists blame boaters’ foolishness more than evil intent, but the interlopers have been known to run over the whales, injuring or fatally wounding them.

Sometimes mother whales have been separated from calves, according to marine biologists, resulting in the almost certain deaths of the babies. Reports of whale harassment have increased recently from an average of one a month to nearly three a week.

So for the first time the U.S. Coast Guard has started putting undercover agents on some commercial whale-watching boats leaving harbors from San Pedro south to Dana Point. The agents could help prosecute boaters for harassing whales or other marine mammals, which is punishable by a $20,000 fine and up to a year in prison.

If such prosecutions are brought and won, the fines would obviously be warranted, since the Coast Guard, like other federal agencies, could find other uses for its money than chasing people who, if they used common sense, otherwise would not take up the time of undercover agents.

Biologists also have worried that the increasing numbers of boats have forced the whales farther off shore, even when they don’t harass the mammals.

The Pacific grays have made a good comeback from their jeopardized status, in part due to federal protection. Boaters need to give these impressive mammals the respect they deserve--and as much room as they need.