Beautiful San Diego attraction, Balboa Park, has a useful guide for your IPhone. Download it free before your trip to San Diego from the ITunes store.
Balboa Park has gardens, museums, exhibits, local history, and the world-famous San Diego Zoo! We recommend it to our visitors.
Paul Jones answers…
“No one knows why gray whales come so close as to let us touch them and their newborn calves. It’s one of the greater mysteries in the natural world. No other wild mammal—or other large vertebrate—brings its offspring close enough to people for physical contact. It’s awe inspiring. No matter how often I go back to San Ignacio, I’m filled with the same sense of wonder and exuberance.
What does it feel like to touch a whale?
A gray whale feels like tons of solid rubbery wonder, punctuated by large, sharpish shells of barnacles and patches of gritty little whale lice. It’s taut, like a wetsuit on solid muscle. At the same time, it’s smooth and resilient. Should you be lucky enough to touch a follicle, it feels hairy— invoking its mammalian ancestry. To me, gray whales feel like all those wondrous, wet, and wild things.”
Paul will be a naturalist on the February 2011 tour
Searcher carries a good variety of Baja books in our on-board library, but sometimes people like to bring their own field guides along as well. We asked Rob Nawojchik (naturalist on the January, 2011 tour) for his reccomendation:
When the Searcher is in Baja California, a modest library occupies two shelves in the main salon.
Often, following a hike or a whale watching session, the salon is abuzz with activity as volumes are pulled from the shelves and pages flipped open, as species are identified and life history information is shared.
Many of the books are devoted to marine mammals. Some focus on one species, or one geographic area, and
these are definitely worth a look. But time and time again, when searching for answers to a wide variety of
questions about the marine mammals we see on our trips, I pick up one book: the National Audubon Society Guide to Marine Mammals of the World. In fact, I use this book extensively at home before the trip when preparing my evening lectures. It’s much more than a field guide, although it functions well in species identification. Every species of marine mammal is allotted several pages that include photographs and sections on general description, range and habitat, behavior, reproduction, food and foraging, status and conservation, and other topics. The illustrations of Pieter Folkens make the guide especially valuable.
As Searcher passengers can attest, marine mammals are particularly difficult to photograph, and it’s rare to capture the entire animal out of the water, especially in a way that illuminates all diagnostic features.
Folkens’ illustrations depict key characteristics, and with the photographs, range maps, and other information in each section, allow for reliable identifications.
Four prominent marine mammalogists have provided readable and informative text. Despite being published in 2002 (almost a decade ago), I still find the Guide to be accurate and relatively current—a tribute to the authors for providing the best available knowledge. Books can be expensive, especially those richly illustrated with photos, illustrations, and maps. This Guide is modestly priced (I paid US $26.95 for my copy) and provides a lot of book (527 pages and tons of information). If you’re on a limited budget or have limited shelf space and are agonizing over which one marine mammal book to buy, you certainly can’t go wrong with this one. Like me, you’ll find yourself referring to it over and over again.
National Audubon Society Guide to Marine Mammals of the World, Randall R. Reeves, Brent S. Stewart, Phillip J. Clapham, and James A. Powell, Alfred A Knopf, Inc., New York, 2002
(ISBN 0-375-41141-0)
Some of our passenger may remember Steven, as he rides down aboard Searcher to his research station on Laguna San Ignacio. We help transport some gear as well. The sponsoring organization has an updated web site with research data on gray whales and other wildlife at the lagoon: http://lsiecosystem.org/2010/08/gray-whale-survey-2010/
It’s Baja California’s “friendly” whales that first attract
many of the people who come here from across the globe.
Eastern Pacific gray whales migrate to Laguna San Ignacio
for mating and calving. Thousands of them gather
between late January and mid-April. We’re honored to be
granted permits from Mexico to share this remarkable
place with our guests, and we make the legendary lagoon-
nursery our home for two days on every Searcher Natural
History Tour.
Due to circumstances no one seems to completely under-
stand, gray whales here—and only here with any regularity
—approach our pangas (small fishing boats) and choose to
interact with humans. Some whales, adults and calves
alike, allow us to touch them on the face and back, and
actually appear to seek out this attention from people.
We’ve been working with local pangueros(fishermen) of
Laguna San Ignacio’s Kuyima co-operative for more than
10 years. We call these men and their families our friends,
and are proud to engage them during the whalewatching
season (when they refrain from fishing so as not to inter-
fere with the whales). Their knowledge of the whales and
the lagoon is vast.
Laguna San Ignacio part of Mexico’s Vizcaino Biosphere
Reserve and is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, which
provides international attention, concern, and protection to
its gray whales, dolphins, fishes, birds, and other wildlife.
Its pristine state is testimony to Mexico’s efforts to pre-
serve and protect the gray whales and their environment.
A large area of the lagoon is protected from boat traffic
during the gray whale season; here the whales can choose
to be away from boats and people. But the huge lagoon
also includes an observation area where Searcher anchors
and where we can board pangas for a closer look.
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Listen to Searcher naturalists/leaders Paul Jones and Frank Balthis discuss the beaching of the female blue whale and fetus in northern California:
http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?section=news/local/south_bay&id=7708760
The American Cetacean Society-San Diego chapter is sponsoring monthly talks about whales and dolphins. Here are the upcoming speakers and topics:
Tuesday, September 28 – 7:00 p.m.
Speaker: Mari A. Smultea, MSc., Scientific Director/Marine Mammal Scientist
Smultea Environmental Sciences
Topic: Aerial Surveys: Marine Mammal Distribution and Behavior in Southern California 2008-2010 in Conjunction with Navy Monitoring
Tuesday, October 26 – 7:00 p.m.
Speaker: Dr. William Perrin, Senior Scientist, Southwest Fisheries Science Center
Adjunct Professor, Scripps Institution of Oceanography
Topic: Cetacean Taxonomy in the 20th Century
Both lectures will be held at Sumner Auditorium/Scripps Institution of Oceanography
