Gray whales' numbers leap up
http://www.heraldtribune.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/2005...
By MARY JORDAN
Feb 20, 2005
SAN IGNACIO LAGOON, Mexico -- The gray whales are back, jumping and splashing like 30-ton, sugar-buzzed schoolchildren in the luminous blue-green
waters of this remote lagoon.
Nearly hunted to extinction in the beginning of the 20th century, the whales have rebounded in numbers that are delighting government marine experts
who zip around this Pacific Ocean inlet in a 24-foot skiff, meticulously counting the lively mammals.
"It's looking very good this year," said Gabriel Arturo Zaragoza, chief of the Mexican government's whale census, balancing in a boat with pen and
paper in hand. "These gentle creatures are back."
Zaragoza noted that there are now nearly as many whales in this narrow lagoon as there are people living on its majestic desert shores. He recently
counted more than 800 newborn whales or calves here and in a second lagoon nearby, on the west coast of the Baja Peninsula.
"So far this season, the numbers are running higher than last year," Zaragoza said, noting that last year was exceptional, too. Most significant is
the growing crop of 1,000-pound baby whales. "It's a great sign," he said.
In 1970, after the population of gray whales had plummeted to fewer than 2,000, they were placed on the endangered species list. But as whale hunting
stopped and whale watching became popular, the numbers of gray whales that ply these Pacific waters rose so steadily that by 1994 they were taken off
the endangered list.
Now, following a mysterious die-off around 2000 that left many whales stranded on beaches, the population is on the rise again. The U.S. National
Marine Fisheries Service estimates that there are more than 18,000 gray whales migrating between Alaska and Mexico.
"It's exciting to see. We are happy about the bigger numbers," said Diane Alps of the U.S.-based American Cetacean Society. She said some experts
refer to whales as the "canaries of the sea" because -- like canaries in a coal mine -- when they are thriving, it generally indicates healthy
conditions in their environment, in this case the ocean.
The gray whales are known as friendly whales because they tend to stay closer to shore and are the easiest to see. As their numbers have risen, so
have the throngs turning out to see them.
Marine officials report ever-growing crowds of whale watchers lining piers or filling viewing boats off the Pacific coast of Canada, the United States
and Mexico during the months when the whales are traveling up and down the coastline.
According to the International Fund for Animal Welfare, Americans are the most avid whale watchers, but the pastime has grown rapidly in many parts of
the world and is now a $1 billion industry spanning 87 countries, up from 31 in 1991. While only about 2,000 visitors came to Mexico to see whales in
1991, the fund said that by the late 1990s more than 100,000 were arriving.
Local residents said the arrival of the graybacks, which generally begin showing up in December and start leaving in March, was once a frightening
nuisance. But that view changed as their numbers increased, and as many fisherman started earning far more money operating whale-watching tours than
selling scallops and sea bass. Some tourists have been known to tip $100 if they get close enough to pet or kiss a whale as though it were a puppy.
Monica DeAngelis, a marine biologist with the U.S. National Marine Fisheries Service, said the comeback of gray whales in these waters is all the more
spectacular because it has not happened elsewhere.
She said that there are only about 100 left in the Western Pacific, feeding around Sakhalin island in the Sea of Okhotsk, off the Siberian coast of
Russia, and that the population that existed in the North Atlantic is now extinct.
Homero Aridijis, a Mexican poet and environmentalist who helped lead the successful campaign against a proposed Mitsubishi salt factory at the edge of
this lagoon several years ago, said the abundance of whales brings a "sense of satisfaction" to conservationists who championed the cause.
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