I read Keith Kaste's trip report and didn't really read anything that led me to believe that they had _intentionally_ approached closer than the 100yd limit. True, they did accidentally surprise some seals, but I didn't read anything that led me to believe that they approached any closer. The same applied when they spotted the whales - or so I read. Many of us paddle in areas that abound with marine mammals - sometimes close encounters happen without any action on the part of the paddler. I don't want to get into the finer points of the semantics of the law - that's a job for lawyers, I'd rather just paddle!<g> What I do think is important is that we know about, and understand, the reasons for the law - these are limits that are supposed to help protect the animals from being disturbed by human interference. The 100 yard limitation isn't some magic number that will prevent marine mammals from being disturbed by human activity - it's just a number that was selected by a committee. I think the important thing is that we (as environmentally aware and concerned paddlers) try not to influence or disturb the normal behavior of marine mammals when we encounter them. I won't approach closer than the 100 yd limit when I know that there are mammals present, but if I accidentally come upon one or more creatures, or if they "accidentally" come upon me (highly unlikely that this would be an accident!) my chosen course of action is to either just stay quiet and still, watching until they move away, or in some situations stopping and then slowly backing away. A lot of the time our own personal judgement needs to be put to use - 200 yds might be too close to a Stellar sea lion haulout, and yet other times you might be able to float 20 yds from a sea otter working on its lunch totally oblivious to the human in the kayak. Maybe I see too much grey and not enough black and white... Dave Seng Juneau, Alaska *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List Submissions: paddlewise_at_lists.intelenet.net Subscriptions: paddlewise-request_at_lists.intelenet.net Website: http://www.gasp-seakayak.net/paddlewise/ ***************************************************************************Received on Wed Apr 08 1998 - 17:19:03 PDT
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