The Herring Are Coming

Today or tomorrow the herring fishery gets going. It is kind of like a bumper car affair at times, when the boats compete with each other for the bazillions of herring that are getting ready to spawn in Sitka Sound. They have to catch them before they spawn, so that they can extract the roe and sell it, mostly to the Japanese. With the herring in town, the sightings of sea lions, whales, seals and eagles goes way up. We were taking a drive out to the end of the road north of town when we pulled over to see the whales out on the sound. We looked out onto the water and saw a group of about 6 sea lions, just offshore, swimming around a very large fin poking up out of the water (nothing but the fin ever came out of the water).
This continued for about 20 minutes or so, leading us to believe that it was a small whale either injured or dead. Our binoculars were sitting at home, gazing forlornly out the window, so they were no help.
Kirsty made a couple of calls and soon a NOAA policeman (didn't realize there was such a thing), was heading our way. Sonny arrived just as the larger fin disappeared for good under the water. He said that it could have been a grey whale, as they can come real close to shore and scoop up large amounts of sea bottom, then float up to the surface, rolling on their sides as the sediment and water gets strained out, leaving the food inside the baleen. He says he gets calls often from folks thinking the whale is in distress as it lays on its side for an extended period of time. Sonny also said that sea lions will hang about the whales at times.
He said it could also have been a very large bull seal (Edgar being Sonny's favorite) who was being tended to by his harem. We think the flipper on the left (first picture), is too big for a sea lion, so we're are going to stick with the whale theory.
Anywho, we also watched more than a dozen whales further out in the sound, cavorting up and down, presumably having lunch. More on the herring fishery in a few days.

Peace!