Nice to see them dismiss the usual excuse: "I didn't approach the whales, they came toward me." These guys are around whales all the time, they can surely predict their usual movement patterns, and DFO called him on it.
Whale watching boats are in a structural conflict of interest every single time they go out. Their customers are paying to be taken to see whales, yet the regs mandate a big separation between boats and whales. They are always under pressure to push the rules to the limit.
Only speculating here, but this guy must be disliked by his colleagues/competitor's, sounds like they were the ones who reported him. Would be sensible for the whale watching community to deliberately call out bad actors in an effort to protect the image of the industry and to direct possible punitive measures onto non compliant operators rather onto the entire fleet.
Of course, if the whale watching industry was genuinely about protecting whales and making conditions better for them, they would voluntarily limit their daily hours spent on top of the pods.
www.cheknews.ca
