He’s only small at 7 metres but he has certainly captivated the attention of locals and tourists. Yes, a humpback whale managed to find its way through the sluice gates into the headpond at the Nova Scotia Power Plant. This isn’t the first time it has happened as two years ago a different whale came in to feed off all the mackerel in the area.
We were in Annapolis Royal today and decided to make a trip down to the plant to see what all the fuss was about – along with tons of whale watchers, tourists, Americans and locals. The roads around the gates are blocked off so you can’t park on the street over the gates, mostly because officials want to keep it quiet for the whale so he will hopefully leave on his own accord and also for the safety of the public.
The headpond is quite deep and can certainly hold a whale; and he put on quite the show on Tuesday and also today for tourists, doing acrobatics and flip flopping around. We didn’t see anything but the photos I took are of the area where he was seen and also of the gates that he managed to find his way through during high tide.
On Wednesday he was quite elusive and spent the day hiding behind an island several kilometers up the Annapolis River. He can’t go very far up the river because eventually the salt water will run out and he will no longer be able to survive.
The theory is that the whale followed fish into the area and is now living in the lap of luxury getting his food for free with little stress and lots of attention. But alas, it can’t last because each day he is there the plant loses $64,000 because the turbines are off until he leaves. If he doesn’t leave on his own the fishery officials will have to encourage him out by using nets, a wall of sound or fake whale noises on the other side of the gates. My hope is they don’t screw up because all these ideas look good on paper but whales are highly intelligent creatures and who knows if he will cooperate now that he has found Mecca. High tide is the key – he can only leave through the gates at this time.
I have a question, and I was thinking about this today, if a whale such as this humpback gets named, who decides what the name is? Do officials decide, does the public, or does one bold news organization decide? Could I be so bold as to decide to name him Mr. Elusive the Humpback Whale?
