While interest in visual representations of animals is well established in visual sociology, this article explores another set of possibilities connected with practices of looking at animals. In particular, I examine the social organization of visual experience in whale watching, with a focus on the role of narration. Using detailed transcriptions of whale watch narration as data, I argue that naturalists produce publicly witnessed trip sightings by coordinating what can be seen in the water with understandings of whales as objects of scientific research and environmental concern.
