A Whale of a Comeback
How do I love thee Laguna Beach? Let me count the ways. Actually, there are too many to name, so let me mention just one. We are fortunate enough to live in a region where whale watching is as easy as keeping a sharp eye seaward at certain times of the year.
Whales are nature in its grandest form. They are massive, beautiful, and powerful. They are gentle, inquisitive and sentient, with a high level of intelligence. And, like humans, they are mammals who breathe air, are warm blooded, and nurse their babies with milk. Scientists say they grieve when one of their own dies. Unfortunately, due to man’s literal interpretation of Genesis where God gives humans “dominion” over all creatures, whales have had to grieve a great deal over the centuries.
Take the mighty sperm whale as an example. Between the 18th and 20th centuries, approximately 1 million of these magnificent creatures were slaughtered. Melville did well in making the vengeful Moby Dick this type of whale. Ahab had it coming.
Let us turn to a happier story. The type of whale we are most likely to see off our shores is the gray whale. This great creature engages in the longest migration of any mammal on earth, up to 10,000 miles, from Alaska to the warm waters off Baja California. There, they mate and give birth. During their migration, they often come close to shore providing a breath-taking site.
Grays used to be found in three areas across the globe. One group, the North Atlantic grays are gone. That leaves the Western Pacific grays and our own Eastern Pacific grays. The Western grays were hunted to near extinction by the 1970s, their numbers are estimated to be in the low hundreds at best. Our Eastern grays seemed headed for the same fate, being hunted to near extinction, when in 1986, the International Whaling Commission banned commercial whaling. However, the IWC is a voluntary organization not backed up by treaty. Fortunately, Canada, the United States, and Mexico have pledged to refrain from commercial whaling. This has been great news for Eastern grays as their herds have grown to the point that, in 1995, they were removed from the Endangered Species List. Now over 20,000 make the long trip from Alaska to their breeding grounds in Baja. I have been close to grays while on my brother-in-law’s boat. Recently we came across a mother and calf swimming gently northward; an awe inspiring sight as the mother spouted, followed by the smaller spout of the calf. All I could think of was, “be safe, be happy, and live long.”
Generations to come will be able to enjoy viewing the gray whale migration, a proud achievement for all Americans. Other types of whales are not so lucky. Some nations ignore the ban or say they are whaling for “scientific purposes.” Let the record show that Japan, Norway and Iceland are the top three nations that slay the most whales annually. Our planet is poorer for it.
Let me end by relating a personal story. My wife died in 2013. In accordance with her wishes, I deposited the urn with her ashes off the coast of Emerald Bay where she grew up. Just as I was lowering the urn overboard a blue whale breached not far from our boat. Blues are the largest creature ever to inhabit the earth and can live up to 100 years. In the pre-whaling days they numbered over 200,000, but like so many of their kind, have suffered unjustly at the hands of man. Today, just 20,000 remain. Seeing this great creature as I was saying a final good bye to my wife gave me pause. Like the character Tyrion Lannister in “Game of Thrones,” I have been a cynic most of my life. I doubt most notions, from the afterlife to the goodness of humanity. But, I want to believe that the appearance of the great whale, at the moment I lowered my wife into her watery resting place, was not a coincidence.
James Utt agrees with Jane Velez Mitchell who wrote, “nature did not put whales on this earth to splash kids while stuck in a pen.”
