Guide Report – Gray Whales

San Ignacio Lagoon, BCS, Mexico

By: Liisa Juuti

February 19, 2015

Besides the daily
interaction with the whales and the breathtaking beauty and simplicity of the
lagoon, I love the exchange of knowledge and experiences with our guests and
guides. Never had I thought that San Ignacio Lagoon was the place I’d learn the
steps for Electric Slide (that’s line dance, of course!). Thank you Nancy &
Spencer for sharing with us your passion! M-T, one of our guides, has been
giving very welcoming yoga / stretching sessions to our guests and sharing her
experience of free diving and whale sharks.

We learned a lot from
Carrie Newall, too. Carrie is a marine biology teacher and has been doing
gray whale research for almost 20 years. She brings her group of whale
enthusiastics and volunteers to our camp every year. She has her whale watching
company in Oregon and specializes in identifying the summer resident grays
along the Oregon coast. It was in the 60s and 70s that researchers observed
that a few gray whales were spending their summers along the coasts of Oregon,
California, Washington and British Colombia, instead of migrating to the
lagoons of Baja California. At the moment there are about 200 resident whales,
of which Carrie has identified about 75 individuals.

How to identify these
whales, then? Don’t they all look gray with barnacles in their head? There are
various factors that the whale biologists use to identify individuals. The
dorsal hump region is a good spot for identifying since it’s always seen when a
gray whale surfaces, and as each dorsal hump is as unique as a fingerprint.
Grays can also have scars in their bodies – both man-made (caused by a harpoon
or boat propeller) or by killer whale attacks – that serve as a way of
identifying them. They can have “birth marks”: prominent color patterns such as
white spots, horizontal lines or differences in tones. They might have scars
caused by barnacles (when a barnacle attaches to the skin, it permanently
depigments the skin leaving a unique white barnacle scar). There are also differences
in the color of gray whales; some are significantly darker, others lighter than
average. Also the fluke can be very different color from one individual to
another.

During their stay at our camp Carrie was quite
sure of having spotted a whale called Beacon in the lagoon. It was first
identified off Depoe Bay in 2007. It was named Beacon because of the round
white spot on the right dorsal hump. Our boat drivers confirmed the visit from
Beacon in the lagoon.