Whale Time

From Nature Notes
by Hank Nichol

California gray whales migrate from northern waters to the lagoons of Baja California each winter. They mate during this great social season, and their babies are born in warmer southern waters. That's important because a baby, all four yards and 2000 pounds of it, has no blubber to protect it from cold. Sometimes a baby whale is born along the route. I've seen several mothers escorting their newborns right past Torrey Pines. Another time I saw what I think may be a blessed event. Whatever was happening was of great interest to a herd of sea lions and a pod of dolphins. Dolphins and sea lions seem to get kicks from watching whales mate. Sometimes the dolphins get worked up and get romantic themselves. I've seen several whale matings here and at the Coronados. For every other species, that I know of, three's a crowd. For some reason it takes three gray whales to tango. Nobody seems to know why.

My first winter at Torrey Pines was in 1976. That's not all that far back. At least it doesn't seem so to me. I remember spending two hours walking forth and back along the ocean view part of the Guy Fleming Trail. I counted 120 gray whales. That exactly matched the 60 per hour that I was supposed to see. In 1986 I went through the whole winter without seeing a single whale from the shore. I went out on one of the whale watching boats. The skipper hung his boat on the track of one whale. It was the only one we saw.

Somewhere around Point Conception some of the whales decide to follow the coastline. The rest take a route to the outside of the Santa Barbara Channel Islands. The two groups reunite near the Coronados. It used to be that the split was about 50-50. Now nearly all the whales seem to be taking the outside path. What's been going on? I don't know, and it seems a lot of people who are smarter than I am don't know either.

There are more gray whales out there than there have been in the last 100 years, but they are getting harder to see. Some blame offshore oil exploration. The booms of TNT would frighten a whale off its route, but explosions aren't used as much any more. Underwater clicks are used instead. They could sound something like the noise made by killer whales. Steve Leatherwood of the Hubbs-Sea World Institute told me he didn't think any gray whale was dumb enough to mistake the clicking of geophysicists for the clicking of orcas. It seems more likely that the whales are taking the migration route farther from shore because of the whale watching boats and their well meaning customers. How would you like having a boat load of tourists following you around?

You may see other cetaceans along this coast. Bottlenose dolphins cruise along just outside the surf. Sometimes they will catch a wave just for fun. Common dolphins aren't common here, but you may see them in the bays or riding the bow wave of a ship or large fishing boat. Pacific white-sided dolphins gather in pods of many-many to hundreds farther out from the shore. If you want to sound nautical, call them "Lags" (for Lagenorynchus obliquidens). Pilot whales are "whales" because they are generally over an arbitrary 20 feet in length. They are really big dolphins. Once, from the Guy Fleming Trail, I saw about 25 killer whales head north. They were ten minutes behind a pod of bottlenose dolphin. Were they on the scent? I blinked and they disappeared. Did they sound? Did they head to sea? I don't know. I've never seen wild killer whales since, but that one sighting earned a place in my memory.