Springtime
in the Lagoon: A Big School
By Carolina
Armon, Guide at Baja
Ecotours
San Ignacio Lagoon,
Mexico
Spring has arrived here in San Ignacio Lagoon. The temperature has finally warmed up to the 80’s F in the afternoons, but evenings and mornings are still chilly. Sometimes the nights are calm and we can hear the whales breathing, right along with the coyotes yelping!
The lagoon is now like a big nursery-elementary-middle school. (I think the calves "graduate high school" when the moms get them up to the feeding grounds in the Bering and Chukchi Seas.) We have observed every behavior on our trips out on the water:
Lately, it seems as though the whales have been practicing endurance swimming. They are getting ready for the big trip and the big oceans! Moms swim with the babies against the currents near the mouth of the lagoon to build up the babies' strength and endurance. They will need it on the long journey north!
Do you see the mud circle?
(enlarge)
Photo Caroline Armon
Many books still say the grays don’t feed on the migration or in the lagoons. Well, they do — but it's more like snacking than the feasting that goes on in the cold, food-rich Arctic. Very little food is in the bottom sediment for the gray whales, yet the water is rich in plankton and algae. We see the moms teaching the babies how to suck up a mouthful of the bottom of the lagoon, just as they'll do in the cold northern feeding waters. The lagoon is very shallow in many places, and we see whales on their side, with pectoral fin and tail fluke above the water. Then they roll up and we see the mud circles on top of the water when their large tongues push the water and sediment out through their baleen so they can swallow the crustaceans and critters left behind in their mouths.
Whales at Play
Much
of the literature also says the gray whales don’t
socialize. I think they do, but in ways we
don’t
recognize as socializing. Besides, we are
only seeing a small portion of the whales' lives above
the water.
It was exciting to observe
the calves
in tight
groups for about a
week,
with their
moms — all playing with one another!
I call it play because they were swimming together,
rolling over
each
other, doing
headstands and cartwheels
over each other, and touching each other. It
was awesome to watch!
Photo Adrienne DeLiso, Baja Ecotours
Whales
at Rest
Whales,
dolphins, and porpoises can’t
fully fall sleep or they would drown.
So they have adapted by resting one hemisphere (one
half)
of their
brain at a time. Too
cool! One
day we drove the boat very slowly up to a resting
adult female. We quietly reached over to touch her.
She appeared
to rest the entire time we touched and
rubbed her,
staying at the surface and taking a shallow
breath every now and then.
The calves are bigger now and the moms seem relaxed. Some moms enjoy the touch of tourists as much as the babies do, so we have been interacting on every recent boat trip! We have even been kissing the whales and checking out their baleen! I have noticed younger, maybe first-time moms who sometimes seek more attention than their babies! I think they must have been touched as calves, because they are right by the boats to get the touches. We still get whales gently bumping the boat. Sometimes we even get lifted and moved about, so we are ‘whale riding’ too!
Saving
the Nursery Lagoons
This really is a sacred, wild place. I am
grateful the Laguna San
Ignacio Conservation
Alliance for attempting to keep it that
way. The alliance has been able
to buy conservation easements
of 120,000 acres on the south side of the lagoon.
The goal is to raise $10 million to conserve 1 million
acres. This can help keep the whales
safe from high-rise hotels being built on the beaches, oil
and gas drilling noise and leaks in the
water, or the bustle of a big salt production everywhere.
Journal or Dicussion Question
-
What would you say to someone who believes high-rise hotels, oil and gas drilling, or a big salt production facility should be built in this lagoon?
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