In about half the segments mapped by the researchers, humpbacks deviated by one degree or less.
There also are about 2, 000 fin whales in the northeast Pacific, and about 2, 500 humpbacks.
There is no question whether visitors during this time will see the humpbacks.
Global numbers are still recovering after humpbacks were widely hunted and slaughtered by commercial whalers for much of the 20th Century.
This brings humpbacks, minkes and king-of-the-sea blue whales steaming through the area, as well as chatty white belugas, which otherwise are seen only in the Arctic.
The researchers found that, despite surface currents, storms and other distractions, the humpbacks never deviated more than about 5 degrees from their migratory courses.
Jackie Hildering of the Marine Education and Research Society, a guest naturalist on board, explained that the baleen whale was trying to intimidate the orcas to avoid being attacked, since Biggs orcas kill humpbacks.
In addition to their show of splashing around the surface of the water, the humpbacks enchant visitors as their cries echo below the water, conducting a beautiful symphony for divers used to listening to just the sound of their own breathing.
The Navy disputes his assessment, saying this year's humpback whale season was normal, and more whales than ever before were seen in March 1998, when biologists studied humpbacks' response to the Navy's Low-Frequency Active Sonar (LFAS) equipment in Hawaiian waters.
We had pulled into an isolated bay on Chichagof Island (one of the three large islands that shelter the inland coast of southeast Alaska), alerted by various whale spouts as four, then six, then eight humpbacks joined together in a circling, roiling mass.
The next it was the humpbacks again, as two detached themselves from the main pod to give us the once over, drifting first down one side of the ship, then the other, and finally surfacing right under the bow as we watched with increasing incredulity.
In coordinated groups, the animals first cornered and then herded a massive school of herring, blowing bubbles around them to confuse the fish and make them swim tighter, until, surging through the middle of the school with mouths agape, the humpbacks boiled to the surface in a feeding frenzy.
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