In March of 2000 I was
a parent chaperone for my son’s class whale-watching field trip. As all of the
fourth graders scrambled to the front of the ship, the teacher and I rallied
behind the students to lead the search for whales off the coast of Santa Cruz.
The Monterey Bay water was choppy and stormy, but the Captain assured us that
we would see California Gray Whales. We spied sea otters and sea lions, common
visitors in Santa Cruz, and a few dolphins, but no whales. “Be patient,” the
Captain said. My patience ran out when my son, in the grip of seasickness,
vomited over the side of the ship. Then I got seasick. Nathaniel and I spent
the rest of the trip in the hull, as my son and I chewed crystallized ginger
and resisted the queasiness of seasickness. That was the extent of my
whale-watching experience. I decided then that I would never go whale-watching
again. Period. By the way, nobody saw any whales that day.
So what are the chances
that you will see a whale or two, or three, while on a whale-watching trip?
That is a very good question. A question, from my research, that is not easy to
answer. Of course, from my experience, my chances of seeing a whale was 0%. My
friend, Amy Atkinson, a Long Beach, California resident, would agree with this
fact with her experience on a recent whale-watching trip. However, she says, “This
was the best whale-watching trip I had ever taken. Within
15 minutes of our trip, the captain informed us that we were coming up on a pod
of about 200 dolphins called ‘Common Dolphins.’ After pulling the boat near
them it became evident that there was more than the 200 originally thought to
be there but instead, closer to 700!” But I thought the point of the trip was to
see whales?
During the California summer is when
blue whales are usually abundant in our Pacific Ocean waters. According to the
Long Beach Aquarium, there are a few things to take into consideration when on
a whale watching trip: Weather, water condition and time of season. In other
words, every thing must be perfect. Unfortunately, the gentle giants were in
short supply this summer as “the unusually warm waters this season was not the kind of nutrient
rich chilly water that these blues come here for feeding! They have traveled on
to more krill-rich waters on their mysterious next leg of their journey.” So,
pretty much no blue whales at the end of the summer season. Hey, a whale has
got to eat sometime.
Who wouldn’t jump at a
chance to see the largest living mammal swimming in the ocean? But what if your
chances were slim to none? Yeah, I would be bummed out too. Here is what you
are missing out on: According to the National Marine Mammal Laboratory (NMML),
the blue whale is of the sub-order of whale-species: a baleen whale. An adult blue can grow to about 100 feet in
length, which is longer than a professional basketball court. They also can
weigh up to 160 tons, which is heavier than most dinosaurs! For a different
perspective: imagine walking through the blue whale’s main blood vessel. NMML
states that the blue whale’s aorta valve is so large that a human could easily
crawl through (Yeah, I’m not interested in trying it either.) When asking the
question “How can I identify a blue whale?” The NMML website has the answer:
“They are huge!”
No one can argue with
this giant if it needs to go elsewhere for its dinner. This picky eater can be
quite particular about its diet. Get this: the largest mammal on the planet
eats one of the smallest, bottom of the food chain’s, creatures: krill. The
blue whale does not have teeth like the orcas, but a brush-bristle (the only
way I could think of describing it) substance that filters out their favorite
food. The adult krill will measure to less than one inch in length and is a
shrimp-like type of crustacean. For a blue whale to get its fill, it must eat
over two thousand pounds of krill at one feeding. During peak consumption
period, the blue can eat up to eight thousand pounds of krill. Apparently,
krill can be just as picky as whales, considering they prefer chilly waters as
compared to Southern California’s unusually warm waters this past summer. The
Long Beach Aquarium of the Pacific website showed that the blue whales had to
travel on to deeper, krill-rich waters to get their fill. Would you want to
hang around if there was nothing to eat? Me neither.
Well, that explains
why chances of seeing a blue whale can be slim, but what about our namesake,
the California Gray Whale? Amy went on her whale-watching trip early in
November and if she had waited just a few weeks, she may have had an improved
chance of spotting a whale or two. The Aquarium of the Pacific is excited about
the upcoming whale-watching season, but states: “We are hoping to see gray
whales during the end of November all the way through May.” This is the time
that the gray whales make their winter migration from the coasts of Alaska and
Russia all the way down to the warm waters of Baja California. This is a
several months long trip that is a 12-14,000 mile migration for the
whales. If you are lucky, the whales
will be willing to make a rest stop to say “hello” while you are out there.
What should you look
for when spotting gray whales? They are almost as easy to spot as blue whales,
if they are out there, except they are not as big as the blue at about half the
size at about forty-five to fifty feet in length. That is about the same size
as…half the basketball court. I am sure this means it would be a little
difficult to crawl through its aorta valve, which I am still not interested in
trying. The gray whale is also a baleen whale. It gets its food not from the
open ocean, but from the sediment of the sea floor. They sieve the sediment
through their baleen to capture plankton, a substance that is even lower in the
food chain than krill. In fact, krill larvae are considered a type of
phytoplankton. Smaller whale, smaller food. Yet the size proximity is still
ironic, isn’t it? How many pounds of plankton can a gray whale eat? About the
same as the blue whale, over two thousand pounds per feeding. They can sieve
through as much as fifty acres of sediment during a feeding. That is a lot of
ground cover! Fortunately, the gray is not as picky and will eat other arthropods
called mysids and tiny fish.
It is still too early
to surmise if the gray whale will be as allusive as the blue whale. However, if
you are still interested in a fun boat ride and the opportunity to see other
ocean-life, there is an almost iron-clad guarantee that you will see dolphins.
Amy came back from her trip eager to recount watching the hundreds of dolphins
frolic: “They swam alongside the boat and jumped and played around us.”
That was not the only encounter they had with dolphins. “After about twenty
minutes the captain spotted another pod of dolphins, this time, about 200
bottle-nose dolphins. These dolphins are known for their jumping abilities and
some of them looked as if they were flying out of the air!” On her two-hour
trip, she viewed as many as nine hundred dolphins? It is a big ocean; I guess that could be
possible. Does that make up for not seeing any whales? Amy says yes and “It was
amazing! Unfortunately during our trip we did not see any whales but it was not
disappointing to me at all. I consider myself very lucky to have seen so many
beautiful dolphins!” I tend to believe her after all of the pictures she showed
me. The dolphins were beautiful and quite acrobatic.
What are the chances that I will go
on another whale-watching trip? Probably zero, but you never know. I may become
inspired by my friend and brave the open sea to catch a glimpse of an enormous
gray whale, provided I have taken something to combat sea-sickness but I don’t
think so. Since my son had his whale-watching experience, he has had a few
ocean fishing trips and could only get through the trip by taking something to
combat the sea-sickness, but is whale-watching one of his favorite activities?
Absolutely not. But if you are still interested in braving the sea, then
remember that whales are much pickier than dolphins and also keep in mind
weather and water conditions and the time of season. Unless everything is
absolutely perfect, your chances of seeing a whale will most likely be…zero
percent. Come to think of it, 900 dolphins could beat out a 160 ton blue whale
any day, what do you think?
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