The're here!

THursday November 13th we saw 2 more whales from Punta Mita.
They were two adults swimming very close to each other, surfacing every 4 to 6 minutes, breathing calmly.
Mating season is here!

Puerto Vallarta Fishing Report November 12th 2008 Discover Pacific Tours

Thursday November 13Th, Captain Manuel took 3 passengers on a 4 hour fishing tour.

They wen towards the middle of the bay (but not that far) and they caught 3 Dorado.

There were a lot of feeding frenzies and it was a beautiful sunny day.

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Jueves 13 de Noviembre el capitán Manuel llevó a 3 personas en un tour de pesca de 3 horas.

Salieron rumbo a media bahía (pero no llegaron ahí) y sacaron 3 Dorados.

Había muchos comeríos y fuen un binoto día soleado.

Welcome Humpbacks!

Yesterday Captain Manuel during a fishing tour spotted a couple of whales in front of Nuevo Vallarta not too far from the beach.
The season is startinn on dcember 7th though.

More Humpback whales in our bay.

On Friday November 2ND 4 humpback whales where seeing at approximately one quarter of a mile from the beach in front of the Pelicanos hotel at around 4:30pm.
Today at 8:50am during a fishing trip Captain Manuel spotted one humpback whale in from of Boca de Tomatlán, in the south side side of the bay.
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El Viernes 2 de Noviembre se vieron 4 ballenas jorobadas aproximadamente a un cuarto de milla de la playa en frente del hotel Pelícanos.
Hoy a las 8:50am el capitán Manuel vió una ballena jorobada en frente de Boca de Tomatlán, en la parte sur de la bahía.

Whales at last

Yesterday October 29Th, 2007 on a sightseeing tour in the south side of the bay captain Manuel saw 2 Humpback whales in the bay travelling south.
This is normal as every year in October we see the first whales arrive in our bay.
Welcome again!

Training

Yesterday we (all 6 of us specialized guides in whale watching) finished our course set up by the secretariat of tourism .
In our last day we practiced what we had done with Mr. David Mattila 2 years ago when he came to give is a workshop bout disentangling whales from a net.
We only practiced throwing a metal tool to catch the net the whale would be carrying.
We hope never to have to disentangle a whale from a net, unfortunately every year we see whales with nets or ropes around their bodies carrying tons of extra weight during their journeys, cutting their circulation and slowing them down...
As if they didn't have enough danger in their environment already...

An Old Whale

So, the news is that a Bowhead whale killed in Alaska in May 2007 had embedded in the blubber around its neck, a 3 1/2 inch projectile that was shot at it more than a century ago.

They say that the projectile was probably shot at the whale from a shoulder gun around 1890.

Now I can understand that back in those days it was necessary for Alaskans to hunt whales for a living but nowadays, with so many resources at hand they could easily get food from another source.

They also say that whaling is part of their cultural heritage and it is important to preserve it.

Killing whales from a boat with a gun does nothing to preserve their heritage.

Now if they went out on a row boat and threw the harpoon to the whale with their owns hands and fought it the same way, then it could be consider more "preserving their heritage"

Unfortunately it has been estimated that since 1986, when the whaling moratorium was imposed by the International Whaling Commission (IWC), 29,000 whales have been killed (most of them by Japan). a

And in today's world, whales are also killed by collisions with ships, entanglement in nets or from ingesting sea debris.

So it is debatable (to say the least), that the IWC recently renewed a hunting quota for the Alaska Eskimo Whaling Commission, allowing 255 whales to be harvested by 10 Alaskan villages over five years.

The Bowhead whale with the projectile embedded in it's blubber survived the hunt in the 19Th century only to be killed over 100 years later in a similar attack.

This individual was one we should have help preserved, not killed.

Whales and dolphins face more threats today than in any other time in history, and most of those threats are the consequences of human activities

We should be working to save them, not to find a better way to hunt them.