Leviathans are visiting…have you said “Hello?”

I am of the opinion that whales are people …with a different vocabulary.  Perhaps I do them an injustice because they are such gentle giants if they could…they’d probably choose a planet that better suits their placid nature.

Nevertheless….this year we are seeing them in numbers that most of us don’t remember.

Marine mammal enthusiasts are having rare chances at seeing unusually large number of blue whales dining off our coast.

WUSB asked fellow whale enthusiast, Jerry Rootlieb, if he would keep his eyes (and camera lens) open during his almost daily Pacific peregrinations and lo and behold Matey…look what he brought us!

He caught  a colossally  huge whale just as it broke  the surface  and shot a 15 foot high water spout before dropping down for another bite of the krill….of which a whale eats about four tons a day !

Jerry flies the local waters several times a week. Blue whales often pass through the San Pedro Channel but this big a group has not been seen in recent years. They can weigh up to 150 tons  and grow to over 100 feet in length.

They were nearly extinct in the late 1950’s because of hunting but blue whale hunting was outlawed internationally in 1965 and now there are over 10,000 world wide. 2,000 of them consider the water of our coast as their playground.

They are following  huge schools (also called clouds) of krill into the shallow water four or five miles offshore.

We thank the krill and Rootlieb for bringing us this story.

For more info on whales go to: http://animals.nationalgeographic.com/animals/mammals/blue-whale.html