A Trip to the Southern Right Whale's Summer Home

By Gustavo González and - - Reprint | | Print |

PENINSULA VALDES, Argentina, Oct 6 2002 (IPS) - Tierramérica headed to the sea to visit this endangered species in the waters surrounding Argentina's Peninsula Valdés, where these whales arrive in for the September mating season. They are protected by a hunting ban, but their future is still uncertain. The catamaran cuts through the wind-whipped waters of Nuevo Gulf, carrying an amazed group of 42 Chilean travelers who came to South Atlantic to observe the southern right whale in its habitat.

Several whales swim near the boat, their dark heads and backs with their characteristic callosities — often mistaken for barnacles — rising above the water's surface, breathing through their air-holes and sending shoots of water over the people on board before diving under and showing off their incredible tails.

A young whale periodically leaves its mother's side and swims around the catamaran, doing corkscrew twists in the water.

“This is not a show like the ones performed by captive dolphins at Miami's Sea World. Our aim is to study the animal in its habitat, where the mating, gestation and reproduction of the species occurs,” Diego Taboada, of the Whale Conservation Institute, told Tierramérica.

“A playful interaction takes place in which it is difficult to know who is spying on whom, if the humans are watching the whales, or the whales watching the humans,” adds Taboada, an Argentine entrepreneur who visited Peninsula Valdés for the first time 13 years ago as a tourist, and decided to dedicate himself to protecting these giant sea mammals.

Today, there are no more than 8,000 right whales in the world, 3,000 of which are the southern species (Eubalena australis), which each year make the 3,000 to 5,000 km journey through the South Atlantic between Brazil and Antarctica.

Of the coasts of Peninsula Valdés, in the Argentine province of Chubut, some 1,200 of these marine giants gather each September in Nuevo Gulf, to the south of the peninsula, for mating or to give birth after a 12-month gestation period.

The humans on this whale-watching tour — including Daniela and Gabriel Carvallo, 11 and eight years old, respectively — made the long trip by bus from Santiago to Valdés.

Through the Whale Conservation Institute's sponsorship program, the visitors “adopted” the whales Gabriela (named for Chile's Nobel laureate for literature, Gabriela Mistral), Troff, Antonia, and her baby, Docksider, and will receive periodic reports about these specific animals.

The southern right whale was for two centuries one of the most sought-after by hunters. It is estimated that in that period more than 90,000 whales were slaughtered. In 1935, this species received partial international protection, until in 1986 the International Whaling Commission (IWC), founded in 1949, banned hunting of the southern right whale.

“The were the most hunted because of the quantity of oil they have and because, unlike other species, they float when they die,” explained Taboada, who works at the Institute's research station in San José Gulf, north of the peninsula.

They are also among the largest whales, with some measuring 16 meters. Adult females weigh between 30 and 32 tons, and males between 25 and 30 tons. The southern right whale can live to a ripe old age of 80.

As they belong to the sub-order of the mysticetes, they are baleen whales, with large food filter plates that hang from the roof of the mouth, instead of teeth, and feed on algae and krill, the microscopic crustacean of the Antarctic.

In 1970, U.S. scientist Roger Payne, the founder and director of the Whale Conservation Institute, came to Peninsula Valdés because he was concerned about the virtual extinction of the species. Thanks to his studies, it was proved the next year that the callosities on the head of the whale are unique to each one and can be used in identifying specific whales.

Payne created an identification system using a pattern or diagram of each whale's callosities (outgrowths of tough skin), based on photos taken from above, at 70 meters above the water's surface.

This allows each animal to be named and tracked for study and protection. To date, there are 1,300 whales identified using this method, says Taboada.

In 1975, observation trips began, a form of eco-tourism that grew exponentially and benefits Puerto Pirámides, a village of 300 people on Nuevo Gulf, where six sea excursion companies conduct whale-watching tours.

The observation trip lasts some 90 minutes and the price ranges between 12 and 17 dollars.

“Thanks to eco-tourism, people have learned that the whale is more valuable alive than dead,” said Sofía Benegas, the guide on the catamaran carrying the Chilean visitors.

The boat trip and the journey from Chile have served to increase awareness about the whales.

“Many Chileans have no idea that we are part of a biological corridor for many whales. The fact that Chile does not have a national marine park is an indication that there is little awareness about it,” said one traveler, Rodrigo Mellado, director of the membership division at the National Committee Pro-Defense of Flora and Fauna (CODEFF), one of Chile's oldest environmental organizations.

Mellado commented that Chile and Argentina should create a research and conservation area for whales in the Southern Whale Sanctuary, a circumpolar area covering the seas up to 40 degrees latitude south, established by the IWC in 1994.

In spite of the hunting ban, the southern right whale still has its enemies.

Japan, an international leader in whale hunting, was able to block the creation of whale sanctuaries in the Atlantic and Pacific, says Mellado.

And Japan will continue to fight for lifting the hunting ban at the meeting of the United Nations Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Flora and Fauna (CITES), to take place in Chile in November, and at the IWC conference next year in Germany, warns the activist.