Every mother typically wants what’s best for her child, but how often is it that they swim miles and miles in the ocean to transport their children to the comfortable, warm waters of Mexico?
Well, that’s exactly what one mother did last Friday— except this momma happened to measure around 40 feet long, weigh more than 30 tons and, most notably, be a whale.
Off the coast of Long Beach at Rainbow Harbor, the Aquarium of the Pacific and Harbor Breeze Cruises hosted media and the public on a whale-watching excursion on Jan. 13 to see wildlife, such as dolphins and migrating whales.
What they found was what many experts on-board called a rarity— a gray whale and her newborn baby, being escorted by dolphins, migrating south to Mexico in favor of the warmer waters.
“This is extremely, extremely rare […],” Capt. Dan Salas, CEO of Harbor Breeze Cruises, told the passengers. “We still get excited. This is exciting for us even though we are out here every day.”
The Harbor Breeze Cruises crew, led by Salas, helmed the M/V La Espada, a specialized watercraft docked next to the aquarium, for the trip that Friday.
Salas said it’s around this time the Pacific Gray Whale begins its annual migration, the onset of the gray-whale season up until April or May. Other whales have been spotted in local waters recently, as well, including fin whales, orcas, humpback whales and sperm whales, according to an Aquarium of the Pacific press release published last week.
The whales are often seen traveling northbound and southbound as they pass California during migration.
James Stewart, Aquarium of the Pacific education coordinator, told people on-board that gray whales migrate southbound to Mexico since “it’s a lot easier to give birth in the warm waters because the babies have a better chance of surviving. And then they go back north.”
Kera Mathes, also an educator with Aquarium of the Pacific, explained to the participants that a whale’s blubber aids in protecting them from cold waters, but babies are born with an insufficient amount. Since whales are mammals and therefore warm-blooded, water gradually sucks heat out of their body, so they thrive in warmer temperatures, she said.
When babies are born during migration trips, it becomes a lot trickier for mothers to care for them because the calves then have to learn how to swim almost immediately, Mathes said.
The gray whale found itself in that exact situation with her baby that Friday. Experts on-board estimated that, at most, the baby whale was a couple of days old.
Media members and the public were invited on a boat excursion to observe wildlife at sea on the M/V La Espada, courtesy of Aquarium of the Pacific and Harbor Breeze Cruises, on Friday, Jan. 13. At a distance, the tail of a newborn baby whale can be seen as it is escorted by its gray whale mother and a few dolphins on their migration trip to Mexico.
When whales are born, they can weigh up to 1,500 pounds and measure up to 15 feet long, she said. They tend to grow quickly by feeding off of their mom’s milk, which contains between 50 to 55 percent fat in comparison to a human’s two-percent fat. Baby whales gain about 50 pounds a day and sometimes upwards to 100, she added.
When traveling with their babies, whales sometimes completely submerge themselves underwater in an attempt to be quiet and avoid attracting predators. They swim slower and blow with less force, which results in snorkeling— a brief and light “puff” of water as it is exhaled out of the whale’s blowhole, Mathes said.
The Aquarium of the Pacific and Harbor Breeze Cruises also hosted the event to detail conservation methods that attempt to preserve life at sea.
After the trip, participants had a chance to explore the Aquarium of the Pacific and interact with its “Whales: Voices in the Sea” multimedia kiosk exhibit. The presentation details environmental hazards that threaten different whales— such as the gray whale, who is currently listed as an endangered species in the presentation.
However, on the aquarium website’s online learning center, the gray whale is listed as “safe for now.” The website states there was a time when three different populations of gray whales inhabited the coastal waters— the north Atlantic, western Pacific and eastern Pacific.
The north Atlantic population became extinct 300 years ago, and the western Pacific species is critically endangered and is feared to soon become extinct, but the eastern Pacific group has since made a steady recovery from near extinction to a current population of about 26,000, the website states.
The recovery is attributed to conservation efforts that address threats, specifically those resulting from human activities— many of which include collisions with ships, entanglement in fishing gear, reduced food sources as a result of climate change, noise pollution and many others.
Gray whales, compared to their counterparts, lack a dorsal fin and are instead identified by the hump on their backs, Stewart said during the boat trip. Like most whales, they can breech, or break the surface of the water, and their tails are often visible out of the water as they dive back in.
They also leave “footprints,” which are a result of the turbulence caused by the whale’s tail. This creates a flat circle in the ocean, a good indicator of where the whale is heading.
And perhaps the most distinct quality of the gray whale is when it exhales through its blowhole, as water that spouts out is often described as being in the shape of a heart.
“It’s not a perfect heart,” Stewart joked, “but it is getting close to Valentine’s Day.”
The Aquarium of the Pacific and Harbor Breeze Cruises host two- to two-and-a-half-hour whale-watching boat trips with local experts twice a day, at noon and 3pm. Standard cost is $49.95 and includes Aquarium of the Pacific admission.
Call (562) 590-3100 or visit aquariumofpacific.org/education/info/gray_whale_watch. Those interested can view the “Whales: Voices in the Sea” exhibit online at aquariumofpacific.org/exhibits/northern_pacific_gallery/whales.
