There’s a rare, enchanted moment naturalist Laura Lilly hopes for whenever she leads a whale watch — when a whale gets close enough and looks right at the boat, gazing at the people who came to marvel at it.
“We've seen breaching, we've seen open mouth feeding, all kinds of different species and animals,” Lilly, who leads whale watch boat tours with Boston Harbor Cruises, told the Morning Edition team. “But I think the best is when they decide that they're comfortable enough to come and investigate the boat and take a look at you. And there's nothing like looking into the whale and looking at their eyes. That's a very rare, exceptional experience. And when you get it, you'll never forget it.”
The World Wildlife Fund estimates that only about 400 North Atlantic right whales remain. They’re majestic, growing up to 52 feet long and weighing up to 140,000 pounds, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Fisheries.
Coastal Massachusetts is surrounded by marine life, and it's not uncommon to see it if you're out on the water. As magical as those sightings can be, it's also not uncommon to hear of those animals having troubling encounters with the things humans introduced to their habitat: Fishing gear, being hit by boats, ocean noise that hinders their communication, changes in their food webs and climate change, according to NOAA.
As a whale watch naturalist, Lilly said she is all too aware of those issues. The vessels have to follow federal mandates to stay at least 500 yards away from right whales. If a whale gets closer, captains turn off the engines.
“What we do notice out here is that a lot of the time, we get to the whales and their behavior doesn't change,” Lilly said. “It's interesting to think about their concept of what it is that they're looking at. But you can certainly see that some are curious and they want to investigate, and to learn more about what this big white thing is that's come into their kitchen, basically.”
But with that privilege of getting near the whales comes a great responsibility to protect them.
“We feel that the whales that are in this area are habituated to boats. But that's not to say that they aren't threatened,” Lilly said.
On @GBHNews right now: @BonjourParis_ and I hit the sea for a whale watching trip!
— Jeremy Siegel (@jersiegel) July 1, 2022
Here’s a video of what we saw. Listen in on @GBH 89.7 or stream it at https://t.co/gKHOhoADCR pic.twitter.com/9G35IcqhQ1
Seeing the whales up close can be an opportunity to educate people about what they can do, both at sea and back on land, she said.
“The real quality of a whale watch is being able to show people how awesome they are and what we can do,” she said. “That's why you'll hear me talk a lot about containing our trash, containing things that won't fly off the boat. This is the time of year where we see all kinds of balloons in the water. We'll see that year round, but specifically this time of year where people are starting to go outside and graduations and cookouts.”
Lilly grew up in Central Massachusetts, just far enough from the coast that she didn’t consider working on the water. Her interest in the ocean was sparked by her first-ever whale watch.
“The ocean has this really incredible pull, I think, on a lot of people,” she said. “I went on a whale watch one day and had such an unbelievable, amazing experience that I decided right then and there I had to find a way to work on a boat. And so I went back on that same whale watch and basically asked for a job. And to my shock, she said, 'sure, come out next Sunday.' And so I started working on that boat as a volunteer.”
She hopes some of the kids on whale watch trips she leads now will experience the same thing, she said.
“I just couldn't not come back out here,” she said. “And that's always my hope, is getting someone out and having that same feeling.”
Lilly spends her trips looking out into the water, spotting dark shadows in the water and columns of steam rising from the surface. She tells visitors about their biology and behavior, their history and conservation efforts.
“And so there's a lot that we really still don't know about all of these animals that is really fascinating," she said. "I feel like every year I come out and I'm learning something new from them.”
