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Friendly Encounters
Howard Hall

There are two reasons why scratching an itch on the nose of a thirty-foot leviathan is a bad idea. One reason is that the beast might not like it, the consequences of which require little imagination. The other reason is that the beast might, instead, like it very much. The consequences of that can be unpredictable. Still, for those of us who love marine creatures, the desire to express friendship through touch is often almost overwhelming. Instinctively, some of us often feel an ability to sense an alien creature’s intention to reciprocate affection. Instinct, however, can be inaccurate and misleading.

It may be that, when confronted with a species of great whale, a giant manta ray, or a seemingly gentle moray eel, your instinct tells you that reaching out to give a gentle caress would be appreciated. You may actually be overwhelmed with certainty that the animal will not meet your touch with a fear or anger that might result in squashing you like a grape or ripping off an appendage. So, you think, why not? And, frankly, for many of us who have spent a lifetime in the ocean, these instincts are often correct.

Consider this analogy: You are walking down the street and you come to a dog sitting on the front lawn of a residence. If the dog growls and bares its teeth at you, instinctively you know that giving it a pat on the head would be a painfully bad idea. If, on the other hand, the dog wags its tail, rolls over on its back and wiggles submissively, the instinct to reach out and give it a pat is irresistible. But even in this instance there may be unwanted consequences. You may be repentant as the lovable puppy playfully jumps up on you, soiling your clothes with its dirty paws and licking your face with a tongue that has been recently exploring unmentionable canine anatomy while happily drenching your shoes with an affectionate spray of yellow liquid. Returned friendliness is not always a good idea with a strange dog. It is also not such a great idea with a wild marine creature several hundred times your size. Consider the following example of a friendly encounter that resulted in a nearly bone-crushing show of affection.

Bob Cranston and I were diving rebreathers at Anacapa Island just offshore from Santa Barbara, California. We'd been down just over an hour searching for a fish called a sarcastic fringehead. These fish are quite common everywhere at Anacapa except, of course, in the location Bob and I were searching. We had searched fruitlessly north of our dive boat, the M/V Truth, and were beginning to invest another hour searching south, when a voice near my left ear said, "I don't know if this is important or not, but there's a small gray whale in the kelp near Cat Rock and it's been there for about a half hour. I don't know, but I think maybe you could film it." The voice belonged to Mark Conlin and was emanating from a tiny Ocean Technologies’ communication speaker attached to the shoulder of my Scubapro Stab Jacket.

Filming whales underwater is problematic especially in the relatively murky waters of Southern California. Nearly all of my best experiences have depended upon active participation by the whale. We call such curious animals “friendlies.” Unless the whale is “friendly” and approaches the cameraman intentionally, the cameraman has little chance of getting more than a distant murky shot of a whale dashing by. Generally, a prerequisite for a whale becoming interested in a human is that the animal must first be absolutely bored to tears. A whale slowly bobbing around in the kelp sounded like a bored animal to me and therefore I felt it worth presenting myself as an object of curiosity. I pressed the "push to talk" button on my mouthpiece and said, "Load the camera with 7293. Put on the 5.9mm lens and URP filter. We are coming back".

"Roger, loading 7293, 5.9mm, and URP," Mark confirmed. By the time Bob and I got back to the Truth, the camera was ready and waiting.

"It's still there,” Michele Hall said pointing to a spot a hundred yards astern of the Truth. Bob and I dropped our rebreathers on the deck and quickly assembled our scuba gear. One of the great expectations regarding rebreathers is how useful they may be for filming whales. My experience has been that rebreathers are cumbersome and slow compared to standard scuba. And in a situation where you are relying on the animal's curiosity, stealth doesn't necessarily work in your favor. We almost always attempt to film whales on open circuit.

With our tanks strapped on, Bob and I stepped into the Truth's Zodiac and Danny, the Truth's skipper, motored us toward the whale. When we reached the spot where we had last seen the animal, Bob and I pulled on our fins and masks and got ready to jump in.

"I don't see him now," Danny said.

"It doesn't matter,” I replied. "He's got to be close and for this to work, it has to be his idea anyway; he has to be a friendly or we’re wasting our time."

Visibility was about fifty feet as Bob and I settled on the sandy bottom sixty feet below the zodiac. After five minutes I was just beginning to feel foolish when the whale made its first pass. I turned the camera on just in time to get a worthless shot of the tail as the animal passed by. But before the whale disappeared, I could see that it was circling back for another look.

The next time the whale passed, it did so on its side with the left side of its head pressed against the bottom. Then it opened its mouth and sucked up great clouds of sand and water. Gray whales are mud suckers.

In the North Pacific gray whales normally feed on amphipods buried in the sand. There were no significant quantities of amphipods here, but maybe the whale was finding something else in the sand to eat. Whatever the meal was, the whale was giving me an opportunity to film a seldom seen behavior. My adrenaline was pumping through my veins like a fire hose.

Of course, it wasn't easy. As if playing a game, the whale seemed to instinctively know which move would catch me most off guard, producing the most awkward shot. For the next hour, Bob and I swam at one hundred percent effort trying to get the best position on the whale as it circled around making repeated passes. Soon I was almost out of film and Bob was out of air. I was nearly exhausted, but used the last of my air and my last bit of energy to rollout the last few feet in my 16mm movie camera. When I was finally out of film I was almost grateful. And that's when it happened; the bit about scratching the nose of a whale.

Since I was out of film I stopped swimming. It was no longer necessary to fight for that head-on position as the whale swam by. I was done shooting. I settled down on the bottom and relaxed waiting for my breathing to come under control and my heart rate to normalize.

The whale also realized that the game was over. Now it no longer felt obliged to foil my efforts by presenting awkward posses and tail-on photo opportunities. It turned and swam toward me slowly, head-on. Then, only four feet away, it stopped and settled on the sand. I couldn't believe it! I had busted my ass to get this kind of position and now, out of film, I watched as the whale not only made a perfect approach, but stopped and lay in the sand five feet away! Motionless!

Moving slowly, I crawled over to look into the tennis ball-sized eye. It was looking back. Then the head turned and moved a little closer. The whale raised its nose toward me. I could see barnacles on the nose, their feathery legs reaching out to strain the water. The nose was an arm's reach away and at shoulder level. I looked into that great eye once more and a long moment passed. The gray whale didn't wag its tail, roll over and wiggle, but the message seemed clear. If I scratched its nose I was certain the whale would appreciate it. I was overwhelmed with a desire to show friendship through touch. Slowly, I reached out and touched the rubbery hide. Then gently, I scratched.

The whale leaned slightly in my direction to increase pressure on my hand. I was certain the whale liked it. I continued to scratch for about thirty seconds mesmerized by the proximity of this magnificent creature. And then I decided I’d had enough and stopped. You might ask yourself how one could become bored with such an opportunity after only thirty seconds. Nevertheless, after a lifetime dreaming of such an encounter, I found thirty seconds or so completely satisfying and was ready to move on. Perhaps I’m a result of the television generation. The whale, however, had other ideas.

Have you ever scratched the nose of a dog and then, after stopping, had the dog put its nose back under your hand and nudge it looking for more? Well, that's what the whale did. Problem was that the whale weighed fifteen tons and when it bumped me with its nose I went flying. I rolled across the sand like a peanut being pushed by the nose of a giant toddler in some kind of preschool game. Then I looked up just in time for the whale to whack me with its nose again. I went ass over teakettle. I was being pushed across the bottom like a football after repeated attempts to recover a fumble. My mask filled with water and I managed to get it about half clear when I went spinning again. It had ceased to be fun. I realized I could drown. The whale was killing me with kindness. I was in danger of losing my camera if not my mouthpiece. When I got my mask clear a second time, I found myself several feet off the bottom with the whale moving in for another affectionate blow. The trajectory was such that the next impact would probably have me singing in the soprano section for life. I slammed my knees together and twisted away just in time and found myself rolling down the whale's flank and bouncing off the pectoral fin.

Then it was over. The whale decided not to return for another smack at the peanut it was rolling across the bottom. Instead it slowly drifted away vanishing from sight. I didn't pause to bid the whale a fond farewell. Instead, I beat feet back to the boat and climbed thankfully aboard. A few minutes later we saw the whale breach a few hundred yards away.

The Truth pulled anchor and we followed the whale as it rounded the eastern tip of Anacapa Island and moved into the rough water of the Santa Barbara Channel. Then it breached a half dozen times more as it moved out into the open ocean.

This series of unfortunate events was initiated by my naive expression of friendship through touch. Clearly, in this case it was not a good idea. Perhaps it never is. Today, common sport diving etiquette precludes touching wild animals even when the wild creature seems to suggest the contact would be appreciated. Not only can touch result in unpredictable and unpleasant consequences even by careful and conscientious divers, but touching “friendly” marine creatures is often abused by the less careful (or completely stupid). Riding manta rays is a classic example. Several times I or my wife, Michele, have found manta rays encumbered with fishing gear. Often at some risk, we have grappled with the rays while cutting free the hooks and nets. Certainly, the process was intensely uncomfortable for the rays and the risk of becoming entangled was significant on our part. I mention this only because my friend Bob Talbot almost lost his life in a valiant attempt to free a gray whale from a net entanglement. Attempting to free an entangled animal is serious business. The interesting thing is that in several cases involving manta rays, the winged giants returned after being freed. Sometimes they hovered below me or Michele almost motionlessly in an obvious attempt to encourage further contact. This is how manta riding started. For some mantas, humans are considered cleaners. Unfortunately, for every diver who approaches a willing manta with gentleness and respect, there are a half-dozen whose desire to ride the “Dragons of Pern” is so great that they attack the rays with brutish aggression. These instances have ruined this beautiful relationship for everyone. And to discourage such encounters, I no longer touch mantas despite their encouragement.

Another “friendly” behavior is often developed through the offering of food to wild animals. Jim Abernethy, of Jim Abernethy Scuba Adventures, often uses bait to attract enormous tiger sharks to a dive site he calls Tiger Beach. He knows many of the tigers by name and is intimately familiar with each animal’s unique behavior. One fourteen-foot tiger he’s named “Emma” is so gentle that it’s tempting to stroke her flank as she passes by or gently pat the top of her enormous broad head; stupid, perhaps, but tempting. Emma is a “friendly” tiger shark, if such a thing is possible. But she is still a wild and ferocious predator capable of tearing a diver in half and swallowing the parts. And someday, she just might when some fool gives her a loving caress on a day when she is particularly hungry.

Feeding sharks is often necessary otherwise they simply never come close enough to observe, much less photograph. But misinterpreting any kind of shark behavior for friendliness is suicidally naive. Moray eels are perhaps even worse. Feeding morays at many dive destinations has been common practice for many years. Once satiated with a stomach-full of fish or squid, they are often cuddled impressively by local dive masters. The problem is that morays in some locations have become so used to the handouts that they greet descending divers by swimming up off the reef and ripping into anything they think may contain a meal. These encounters have resulted in terrible injuries and in one case an amputated arm.

During the last forty years, some of my most memorable encounters with the wild creatures of the oceans have been with “friendly” animals. I have caressed the callosity encrusted eyebrow of a southern right whale, touched the giant pectoral fin of a humpback, been affectionately (if not quite gently) rolled over by a baby sperm whale, allowed a wild sea lion to take my hand in its mouth, ridden on the pectoral fin of a whale shark (which I admit was less encouraged than tolerated), stroked the flank of a fourteen-foot tiger shark, cuddled six foot wolf eels, and glided through the deep on the back of an eighteen-foot manta. I don’t think any of these encounters caused discomfort or apprehension for the animal (with the possible exception of the whale shark). But I also believe that such encounters belong to an age that is now passed. I was naive in the assumption that such behavior was safe and without consequence to myself, and to those who might incorrectly emulate my behavior. And I’m sure it is not always safe and pleasant for the wonderful animals themselves. I agree with the modern etiquette that discourages the touching of wild creatures. Today it is enough for me to be approached by a leviathan so closely that one feels the soft bush of turbulence from the swish of a fluke for the stroke of a wing. On those magically rare occasions when a curious creature of the deep glides by closely enough for me to look deep into its alien eye, it is enough to see that it is looking back as deeply.