I know Sal only from the online world. He has been posting information on fishing, boating safety, and well whatever he wants on various fishing boards that I read. He may not know it but he has written many a book on the outdoors with his information.
If I see a message from him I ALWAYS read it.
Many years ago he explained to me how to take a small boat out the Golden Gate to fish for salmon.
You can find his posts at the Coastside Fishing Club boards.
When I heard of the whales lost in the delta I knew he would have thoughts on the sitation. He and I emailed back and forth on Friday May 24th just after they had announced they would give the whales a 5 day break and do nothing, hoping they would move on their own. Just as I posted this they changed their minds again and said they will use water hoses to herd them out.
Here are my questions and Sal's answers.
Rick:
What is your experience on the waters in Alaska and your knowledge of whales up there?
How are they prevented from chasing fish up the rivers there?
Why does that work?
Sal:
I commercial fished the Bering Sea for 30 years, & during the late spring & early summer the young salmon smolt [babies], swim from the lakes & streams where they were born, to the ocean.
The Beluga whales know this, & they try to come into the rivers, where it's more confined & where the salmon smolt are all bunched up, easy pickings.
They [Belugas] absolutely gorge themselves on the smolt, & until the Alaska dept of fish & game [ADF&G] started playing the sounds of the Orca, [killer whales] their number 1 predator, in the river, the whales would come in & devour millions of smolt.
Once the Belugas heard the sounds of the Orcas coming from the river, they turned & wanted nothing to do with the rivers or smolt in the rivers.
Rick:
How much time do you spend on the water in the delta and the Ocean?
Sal:
This is May 24th 2007, the 144th day of this year.
So far this year I've been trolling for striped bass, 116 days out of the 144 on the delta.
This weekend is Memorial Day weekend, & I will tow my 20 ft Boston Whaler Outrage to Half Moon Bay, where I will fish for Salmon, rockfish, sandabs & Tuna, where I will leave it, until approx mid Aug or early Sept.
At that time I will bring it to Sausalito, to chase Salmon out the Golden Gate until the season ends in mid November, & than I will bring the boat back to the delta & resume fishing for stripers & sturgeon as many days a week as the weather permits.
While the boat is at HMB I hope to fish at "least" 3 days a week & more if the fishing & weather cooperate.
I spend anywhere from 225 days to 275 days a year on the water, either the delta or the ocean.
Rick:
What are your thoughts on the rescue of these whales so far?
Any thing you think they should have tried?
Sal:
My thoughts on this so called rescue so far is, the F&G dept & the NMFS screwed up big time when they knew these animals were at Benicia, & they did absolutely nothing, while they hoped the whales would turn around & go back out.
But that isn't the case, as they [the so called experts] should know [even I know] that it is not a normal thing for humpback whales to come into the delta, & those animals are totally lost, not here to visit.
They should have immediately got the recordings of other humpbacks & tried to lure them back out before they went up river any farther.
And if those recordings didn't work, they needed to play recordings of Orcas [killer whales] hunting or feeding on other whales to scare the hell out of these animals, & force them to turn back instead of "HOPING" they would just go away on their own.
I would also try a recording of a very very loud college marching band played from several boats in a line across the river while coming down river from the North of the whales.
All the while the very loud marching band sounds are being broadcasted under water, other boats need to be above or to the North of those boats, throwing seal bombs into the water, starting about 1 mile above the whales so they hear it coming from far off & know it's getting closer.
These animals "MUST" be driven out, not played with & allowed to swim in circles for the next 5 days as that’s what is on the agenda for the next 5 days.
Rick:
Do you think they waited too long to start?
Sal:
Absolutely, there's absolutely "NO' reason to allow those whales to get all the way up to Sacramento before even trying to turn them or stop them.
That was a "HUGE MONSTER" mistake.
Rick:
Where should they have drawn the line?
Sal:
They should have jumped on that at Benicia, the minute they knew those animals were entering the delta.
Rick:
Whales seem pretty tough; do you think the worry over stressing them out was over done?
Sal:
I think they use that as an excuse because they really don't know what to do. Yes I do feel they are using the stress factor far too much, because those whales are going to die in this river if they don't get tough & "FORCE" them out.
Rick:
Here's my crazy thought: Do you think a Japanese whale hunter could have herded them out?
Sal:
My feelings are no. In Japan they have had some success driving whales by banging on pipes, but I think the pipes are much larger than what were using. By the time a Japanese whale hunter & his equip. could get here, the whales would have been in Sacramento.
Rick:
It seems like even the experts are just guessing at what to do, these whales are pretty mysterious aren't they?
Sal:
It's quite obvious they are guessing because they are dragging their feet too long before they do anything.
No I don't feel they are mysterious at all, they're just lost big time.
They live a very routine life; they mate in Mexico, give birth in Hawaii, & feed off the coast of Calif, Oregon, Washington, Canada & Alaska.
I've seen many many humpbacks in Alaska, in fact I set my auto pilot on a trip from The Naknek river to Nushagak bay, about 40 - 50 miles southwest from Naknek, & the weather was absolutely beautiful, & my straight as the crow flies course took me through very shallow water, like 15 - 20 ft. almost all the way.
There was a mother humpback & a baby right in front of us the whole time. We traveled along the beach or coast line for about 3 - 4 hours.
Both the mother & baby put on a show the whole time, breaching completely out of the water & crashing down again.
They seemed to know where we were going, as they had the whole ocean to swim in, but swam right in front of my boat all that time, & when we turned right around Protection point, they turned to port [left] & went into deeper water & sounded.
I feel the officials are doing the best they can, but their playing scared that they might hurt these animals. It's my feelings, if we don't force them out "NOW", we're going to be dealing with a 90,000 lb dead mother whale & a 20,000 lb baby whale in the very near future.
This 5 day rest thing is absolutely insane.
Those whales aren't here on vacation, their stressed to the max right now because they are just plain lost & have no way of knowing that in order for them to get to the ocean so they can swim North to feed, they must swim South right now.
They have a compass in their head, & they know North is where they need to go to eat & survive.
Making them stay another 5 days without pushing them out could very well backfire on the experts.
My feelings are, the experts are hoping the whales will just go away like a bad dream, but I don't think so.
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