MORRO BAY, Calif. (FOX26) \u2014 Whale watchers in Morro Bay were treated to a memorable experience this week after several humpback whales approached a tour boat for what guides call a \u201cmugging.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tourists “mugged” by group of humpback whales (Courtesy: Morro Bay Whale Watching)<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Tour operators with Morro Bay Whale Watching say calm ocean conditions led to an unforgettable encounter as humpbacks swam close to passengers, appearing to \u201cpeople watch\u201d while rolling and surfacing alongside the boat.<\/p>\n
The company also captured underwater footage showing the whales looking up at passengers through clear water during the interaction.<\/p>\n
With whale activity remaining high and calm conditions expected through Memorial Day weekend, tour operators say now is one of the best times to get out on the water.<\/p>\n
Tourists “mugged” by group of humpback whales (Courtesy: Morro Bay Whale Watching)<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
We never intentionally approach close to whales. During our tours we always take care to give the whales their space, but they are generally unbothered by boats and sometimes come close to us. This can happen randomly, as the whales chase bait fish around, or more rarely the whales will intentionally come to the boat to check us out in a behavior known as “mugging.” In either case, we make sure that the boat is in neutral and not moving as long as the whales are near.Comment with Bubbles<\/p>\n
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Daily morning and afternoon whale watching tours are currently being offered.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MORRO BAY, Calif. (FOX26) \u2014 Whale watchers in Morro Bay were treated to a memorable experience this week…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":664963,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[79,201],"class_list":["post-664962","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-science","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/664962","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=664962"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/664962\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/664963"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=664962"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=664962"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=664962"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}