By chance we witnessed a potential humpback whale entanglement episode.
- Bob Perry
- 2 hours ago
- 2 min read
2026 02–15 SB Channel
Things were a little bumpy in our neck of the Channel today, when SE winds and chop ran up against a long period NW swell. Captain Eddy and the crew headed S to the same area, N of the lanes, where we have been seeing a lot of activity this week. Total sightings for the trip: 2 gray whales, 4 humpback whales, 1 Minke whale and 1 California sea lion. As frequently happens, the raw numbers do not tell the entire story.
As we departed Santa Barbara Harbor we were greeted by a pair of adult, Nbd gray whales. They were swimming parallel to the coastline, and we followed them as far as the Mesa. We had no spectacular behaviors, just really good looks.
We turned and moved S about 8 miles where we had a very unique session with the first of 2 humpback whale pairs watched today. It was truly a unique and almost unbelievable sighting.
(Among several different types of commercial harvesting in the Channel that use gear attached to a line with a marker float on the surface, one is the spot prawn trap. These traps are responsible for many entanglement episodes along the California coast and are particularly pernicious because the heavy traps on the bottom are linked together in a “chain” that is ultimately marked by a single buoy. If a humpback gets entangled, it flails around and rolls, trying to free itself in a panic, but cannot possibly pull the weight of all the traps dragging on the bottom. This injures the whale quite a bit and might lead to its ultimate death.)
So it was that today that a spot prawn marker buoy line had picked up some drifting giant kelp from the current. If they’re not busy feeding or mating, humpback whales love to play in detached, floating kelp… just like most marine mammals in our area. To continue the story of our 2 whales, they swam towards the line and it’s kelp and began rubbing their bodies against them. Everyone was aghast and worried that we’d be witnessing an entanglement episode in front of our very eyes. But luckily such was not the case. The kelp streamer became detached from the line and the whales followed it to continue their playful kelping. They came very close to the Condor Express and everyone had excellent views of this amazing behavior. (See photo above for an example of kelping).
While all of this was going on, a single curious Minke whale passed through the area, and we had great looks.
An extremely friendly and curious California sea lion also followed the Condor Express around for a while at this location.
N of the NOAA buoy a second pair of humpback whales was located and watched. These were a little bit larger animals, perhaps sub adults. We had great looks at these restful beasts before we turned and headed back to the Harbor. What a day!
You never know what mother nature has in store.
Bob Perry
