Fin whale hit by cruise ship
Yesterday, while hanging out with the bloggers as part of Blogathon, we heard that a cruise ship docked nearby had a hit a baby whale while at sea.
Crews had discovered it that morning while docking the ship at Canada Place in Vancouver.
Tyler and I headed over to check things out and got there just as crews were trying to remove the whale carcass with a number of boats, two tugboats and a diver.
Here’s some video of the whale actually being pulled away from the cruise ship by two tugboats:
My Flickr set of images from the accident are here…which was also picked up by the Globe & Mail over the weekend.
My photo view stats are through the roof (over 41,000 views of this set alone and rising as I type this), I just would have preferred it was because of the quality of my other photos, rather than the ones of the untimely demise of a baby whale on the bow of a cruise ship.
Makes you wonder how many other whales and sea life get hit each year that don’t get stuck to the boat.
Update: my views topped out at just over 56,000 in a 24 hour period….it would seem that lots of people were interested in this tragic accident.
Update 2: The necropsy has been completed on the dead whale. It was 70 tonnes, approximately 22 metres long and presumed to be middle aged, not a baby as originally thought.
Sunday, July 26th, 2009 : Fail, Media, Photography, Social Media : 5 Comments
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.



5 Responses to “Fin whale hit by cruise ship”
July 26th, 2009 at 10:22 am
Wow that’s awesome your set got picked up by the Globe and Mail! haha I guess I should have uploaded more of my photos or something too!
July 27th, 2009 at 2:08 pm
Given the size of the fin whale next to the tug, plus a bit of my marine biology degree background, I didn’t think it could have been juvenile. Baby whales are big, but not quite that big, even if they look tiny compared to a huge cruise ship.
July 27th, 2009 at 2:10 pm
I suspect early reports called it a baby whale for a more dramatic headline….that or people were expecting Moby Dick.
July 27th, 2009 at 4:24 pm
Oh my goodness… that’s insane. This is the first I’ve heard of it. Your photos and videos are shocking… no wonder they got picked up (congrats by the way, should have sold them :))…
Wow.
July 28th, 2009 at 9:05 am
Really good set of photos. I love Vancouver, although this was a sad situation.