As a wildlife photographer I end up in many places to capture some of what nature has to offer.
This spring, I personally witnessed a disturbing situation.
A pod of orcas were feeding directly in front of my position. Although they were some distance away, I could clearly watch the pod through my professional equipment.
A short time later a commercial fish boat came upon the pod, slowed to view their feeding and continued to make its way past. Although its position was close, I felt that the whales were not put under undue stress. One crewmen did go to the bow to takes photos once it was discovered that the boat was quite near a pod.
The second time the fishing boat approached the whales and steered into the pod. The skipper at this point is moving the boat so that they could get close for the benefit of the photographer. Then the skipper actually maneuvered his boat to port (left turn) to follow two whales for a close-up again. You could see that the pod was now scattering due to some of his intrusive behavior.
It is common knowledge that the DFO wants the general public to report any such action, so a detailed report was presented to them by email.
The report was sent in and I expected at least an acknowledgement from DFO upon receiving the report. After one week I sent a follow up email asking them if in fact this report was received, nothing more, and to this date I have heard nothing from the DFO.
Is a simple return reply apparently to difficult or time consuming?
Wayne Duke
Parksville
