Whale 101 in session
A visit to whale camp offers an immersion in all things Eschrichtius robustus. At Kuyimá, on Baja California’s San Ignacio Lagoon, we spent hours with the knowledgeable staff and the pangañeros, the fishermen who piloted the boats.
Some of their observations — and a few of our own — are indelible:
The grays are large — really large. Adults can grow to 45 feet or more and weigh as much as 40 tons. Babies, known as calves, are relatively petite (15 to 16 feet long and as much as 2,000 pounds).
Their skin is scratched and mottled even at an early age. If you choose to touch a gray, you will discover it feels a bit like Naugahyde. All of them have patches of skin that are covered with “lice,” which actually are tiny crustaceans that will happily climb up your arm.
The first time a gray opens its mouth, you will notice several rows of baleen (bristles) attached to the upper jaw. Are they sharp? Can they destroy small marine mammals in a nanosecond? Not exactly. Grays are filter feeders and, after scooping up water and sediment, they use the baleen, which feel like toothbrush bristles, to hold the crustaceans, tube worms and krill they eat.
And, yes, they blow. What’s more, if you find yourself within a few yards of a gray, it’s quite possible you will be showered with whatever comes out of the blowholes. (Grays have two of them.) Most of the “liquid” is formed when warm air from inside the whale meets the cooler outside air, and the condensation mixes with whale mucus. (Just another
The eastern North Pacific gray whales that ply the waters between Alaska and Mexico twice a year were hunted almost to extinction. Thanks to marine biologists, conservation groups and the Mexican government, the population is now estimated at 20,000 to 25,000.
Some whales want to be touched. Steven Swartz, a marine biologist who has studied the whales of the San Ignacio Lagoon for 40 years, writes about a 1977 encounter with Gracie in “Lagoon Time: A Guide to Gray Whales and the Natural History of the San Ignacio Lagoon”:
“Rolling under the boat, she would turn belly up with her flippers sticking 3 to 4 feet out of the water on either side of the craft, then lift us clear off the surface of the lagoon, perched high and dry on her chest between her massive flippers.… After such gymnastics, Gracie would often lie quietly alongside the boat to be rubbed.”
The reports of such behavior — from tourists, locals and experts — are almost universally enthusiastic. But experts, including Swartz, urge visitors to use common sense.
It’s all about a balance between the human experience and whale protection, said Penny Ruvelas, who leads the Long Beach branch of the Protected Resources Division of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Fisheries.
Without the possibility of experiences that allow humans to interact with whales, she said, “Those of us who are doing [conservation] work … wouldn’t be here.
“It’s really important to walk a line.”