A humpback whale slammed into a fishing vessel off the coast of Portsmouth Tuesday, throwing two passengers overboard. The two passengers were reportedly rescued by another fishing boat, and no injuries — to either person or whale — were reported.
A video of the event filmed by someone on a nearby boat spread widely on social media. Ashley Stokes, who leads marine mammal conservation at the Seacoast Science Center, says the organization received a call from the Coast Guard about the incident around 8:15 a.m.
"It is pretty unique and pretty rare,” Stokes said.
Based on what she saw in the video, Stokes said it appeared that the anglers on the affected boat weren’t doing anything wrong.
“They were simply fishing in the same area,” Stokes said. “There's nobody at the helm of the boat actively trying to see the whale or get closer to the whale. It was just wrong place, wrong time, and they just happened to interact with each other."
Stokes said the influx of bait-fish drew both the fishermen in search of striped bass and the whale to the same patch of ocean. The footage, she explained, shows that the whale is “lunge feeding,” or swimming through a large patch of fish with its mouth open. When the whale came up to the surface, she said it was likely trying to hold onto some of those fish while filtering out water from its mouth, ”but unfortunately, the boat was there.”
“Some people have said, ‘Oh, you know, the whale was angry and is taking out its anger on the boat,’ which is not the case,” she said. “This whale was actively feeding and just happened to interact with the boat.”
