Another Navy Ship Strikes a Whale

For the second time in two weeks, a Navy ship off Southern California has collided with a whale, known in Navy jargon as a “large biological.”

The incidents are baffling to the Navy because this is not the normal time when California gray whales make their annual migration between the Bering Sea and Scammon’s Lagoon in Baja California.

The second collision occurred Wednesday about 80 miles from Oceanside when the guided missile cruiser Decatur, traveling at 15 knots, was struck on its right side. The whale was spotted too late to avoid the collision, officials said.

While the ship--505 feet long and displacing 8,884 tons when fully loaded--did not suffer any damage, the whale disappeared beneath the waves.

Blood was spotted in the water, but the Decatur searched futilely for 30 minutes for the animal.

Despite the proximity of one of the world’s busiest naval ports to the heavily traveled migratory route, collisions between Navy ships and whales are rare, according to officials at the Navy and the National Marine Fisheries Service.

“We don’t have a developed protocol because this hasn’t been a problem for us,” said Cmdr. Chuck McWhorter, spokesman for the San Diego-based 3rd Fleet.

Joe Cordero, an official with the Fisheries Service’s regional office in Long Beach, said the whales may have been gray whale yearlings that opted not to make the trip to the Bering Sea.

Other possibilities, he said, are that the whales were not grays, but humpbacks or fin whales.

On July 28, the frigate Jarrett collided with a whale about 10 miles off Del Mar.

The ship suffered minor damage to the sonar dome on its hull and returned to San Diego for repairs. There was no sign of blood in the water.

Navy ships are equipped with high-technology sonar equipment to detect other ships, particularly submarines. The kind of sonar most frequently used by ships depends on picking up sounds of engines and propellers.

Ships off the East Coast routinely assign sailors to stand “whale watch” to prevent collisions with the right whale, an endangered species.

Cordero said he sees no pattern to the collisions off California nor any cause for alarm among whale-lovers.

“Sounds like just random incidents, bad luck for the whales,” he said.