The Gray Whale Advocate Newsletter

This photo shows a curious baby who approached our whale watching boat last March. The water splashing around his head occurred because he was still too young to hold his head above water for very long. So as he approached our boat he made tiny lunging motions that threw him up out of the water. You can clearly see his eye just above the water. Babies don’t usually do the spyhopper action where the whales head comes straight up out of the water.

Baby gray whales are usually born in the lagoons of Baja. Of course, just as with people, the actual birth can occur early and anywhere along the migration route. Imagine having to drive a pregnant woman 5000 miles to the hospital. As the population of the gray whales has increased, so has the frequency of births that take place during the long southward migration.

Every year scores of babies are born early. Some survive, but many probably don’t,

The lagoons in Baja are the natural nursery for the species. The shallow water is warmer and more buoyant than the Pacific Ocean outside. Babies must learn to swim. When first born, they are weak and the mother helps to support them. Another very important aspect of the lagoons is the protection it affords the newborn and his mother from the Killer Whales.

The shallow waters deter the Orcas from following the gray whales into the lagoons. In ten years, I have not heard of a single case of a killer whale being sighted inside Laguna Ojo de Liebre. The Orcas use speed to assist when they attack the much larger gray whales. The shallow bottom doesn’t allow them to gain speed.

When born the baby gray whale is around 12’ to 15’ long and weighs just under a ton. At slightly less than 2000 pounds these are extremely large babies. Four years ago I assisted a stranded baby off of the muddy bay shore and back into deeper water. He was weak, but still very powerful.

We discovered him late in the day, after dark. There was nothing we could do to feed the youngster. Our small group of 4 or 5 people pushed and rolled him out toward deeper water. We waded out to our waists and helped him swim free. Later we just stood huddled together on the shore, wet and really cold from the on shore wind. There were tears in all of our eyes when we slowly walked the mile or so back to our individual lagoon side camps.

I was car camping that trip. Sleeping in the back end of an unreliable Ford Explorer. The electrical system had died just as I drove up to the lagoon. Some friends helped me get the Explorer to the shore side where I left it for the week while I whale watched and hung out with friends at the Palapa.

That night, after helping the baby, I opened the back end of the truck and sat on the tailgate, staring out at the black lagoon. There was no fresh water to wash off the salt water, so I felt damp and cold. I couldn’t sleep. I just kept thinking about that young baby whale who was probably even colder than I was. Certainly he was frightened and very tired out there all alone in the dark lagoon water.

His glistening black eyes and the way they stared so helplessly at our tiny band of rescuers, crept into my dreams each time I dozed off.

The next day, around noon, we came across a mother whale with two babies feeding and playing around her. I am absolutely convinced that she adopted the young baby we helped off the mud flat. I begged the pangera to keep the boat near the trio so I could watch and see if the two youngsters really were both nursing. After two hours of observation, we knew for sure that she was feeding both youngsters.

That’s all I have room for this time.

Best regards to all the Gray Whale Advocates out there,