Record Number of Pilot Whales Spotted in the UK

Photos by: Martin Elliot HESE

Mermaid II, a fishing boat owned by Skipper Adrian Thomas, recently happened upon an extremely rare event off the coast of Southwest England.

Thomas, a man with over 40 years of experience boating around the British Isles, spotted something he hasn’t yet seen in the decades he has been on the water.

Off the bow of the ship and in the distance he began to see dorsal fins cutting through the surface of the water.

Onboard the Mermaid II was wildlife spotter Martin Elliot who quickly grabbed his camera to capture this rarely observed event.

A large pod of long-finned pilot whales surrounded the waters around the Mermaid II – the largest group spotted in over 40 years.

Thomas said of the event, “In 40 years at sea I’ve never seen anything like it. There was baby with its mother and the whole pod were within feet of the boat.  We could see their spouts and it was incredible to see how gracefully they swam. It was a moving experience.”

The sighting of this large pod is a great sign of how whale populations have bounced back from when whaling reached its peak in the late 1950s and 1960s when over 50,000 whales were killed a year by whalers.

Story via: Express & Echo