“Hello? Yes, this whale looks very suspicious. I think he may be trying to get inside a part of the sea that’s not his. Just come quickly.”
So now white people are calling the cops on whales, SMH.
this is the most annoying family ive ever heard
I fully expected it to be a white woman on the phone before I unmuted this.
@why-animals-do-the-thing to me this does seem like it could have been a dangerous scenario, both for them and for the whales, and they sound like they’re from the US, so how would the marine mammal protection act come into play? Something about the responses to this video just seems too flippant to me.
It’s absolutely a dangerous situation for both of them, but I think they did the best they could given the situation.
As far as I can tell from the video, these people didn’t approach the whale on purpose – it came up and started investigating their boat. That’s genuinely scary. The whale could easily capsize a boat that small if its investigatory behavior became physical. They’re right to be freaked out. And as much as people make fun of them for calling 911, I don’t really think it was inappropriate for them to do so in this situation. Most Americans are taught to call 911 when there’s an emergency and/or their lives might be in danger … I’d say being freaked out that a whale might topple your boat in deep water qualifies. There’s nothing 911 could do in the situation, but I understand the reflex and they’d honestly have the resources to alert help if something bad did happen.
What’s dangerous about this for the whale is the fact that they started the boat – propeller injuries are very common, unfortunately. A small private craft wouldn’t do as much damage to a whale as a larger commercial vessel, but it would still be bad. While I’m not happy they did that, again I can understand it, because most of them were genuinely scared and wanted to get away.
I don’t think they’re going to be at risk from the MMPA because they don’t appear to have sought the whales out or done anything except try to remove themselves from the situation. The government will generally pursue people for purposeful violations of the harm and harassment prohibition around marine mammals, but there is also a certain amount of understanding that if a whale chooses to come up to you, there’s really not much you can do about it.
All of that being said, this would be such an incredible experience to have.
Editing to add: In current-day America, people absolutely use 911 to target minority groups in ways that are unconscionable. I know that’s what the joke in the screenshot is about, but I’ve also had people comment that calling 911 in this response was silly. My comment is only meant to address the latter issue – that it was actually a reasonable response to this specific situation.
there’s the coast guard who are responsible for rescuing people at sea in dangerous situations. So maybe they could have called them?
My original response to that thought is that most people in distress might not think to google the phone number for the Coast Guard and would reflexively just call 911.
I looked up the contact information for the coast guard, and it turns out:
“People in an emergency and need of Coast Guard assistance should use: VHF-FM Channel 16 (156.8 MHz), dial 911.”
Monsters and Stuff 