Man Fined $1,000 For Driving Boat Through Pod Of Orcas

A boat trip near Roche Harbor in Washington ended up leading one man to a $1,000 civil penalty, after he violated regulations by driving his boat straight through a pod of orcas.

The incident occurred back in September 2022, when the man, who’s been named as Matt Ryan, was taking his boat Cypress Point into the waters on the west side of San Juan Island. There, a fellow boater in a nearby vessel spotted the 15.5-meter (51-foot) boat heading toward a pod of orcas and, sounding their horn and using hand signals, attempted to warn Ryan of the whales’ presence.

But those warnings went unheeded, and Ryan kept on course – even after one of the orcas leaped out of the water in front of his boat.

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What he may not have realized at the time, however, was that the captain of the other boat had filmed the entire scene and later reported it to the authorities through the interagency partnership Be Whale Wise .

“The high-resolution video provided strong evidence in this case,” said Greg Busch, assistant director of NOAA’s Office of Law Enforcement, West Coast Division, in a statement . “We’re fortunate that people watching knew what they were seeing was not right, documented it in detail, and reported it so that we could take action.”

In this case, Ryan was violating federal regulations at the time which required all vessels in Washington’s inland waters to stay at least 183 meters (200 yards) away from orcas. For the region’s Southern Resident orca population, the distance required is even greater due to their status as an endangered group.

Though it would later turn out that the whales in front of the Cypress Point were Bigg’s orcas , it’s unlikely that Ryan would’ve been able to tell the difference between the two – and regardless, both have federal protections.

There’s a good reason behind those regulations; one of the main threats to orcas is the disturbances caused by boats. Orcas rely on sound for life under the water, using it to communicate , hunt, and navigate, but noise made by vessels can interfere with those behaviors.

A 2021 study , for example, found that boats traveling within 366 meters (400 yards) of Southern Resident orcas in the waters surrounding San Juan Island disturbed the foraging activity of the whales to the point that some females didn’t feed at all.

This, the authors write, “could have cascading effects on the ability to meet energetic requirements to support reproductive efforts. This is particularly concerning in an endangered population that is in decline.”

Due to such threats, violations of distance protections are taken pretty seriously. In this case, Ryan’s punishment wound up as a $1,000 civil penalty and an admission of having been liable for the violation, carrying no criminal consequences, but perpetrators can end up receiving much greater fines and citations.

And while we’re here, it’s not just boating that can be a problem – people really shouldn’t be body slamming orcas either.