In search of
Where great whales come sailing by,
Sail and sail, with unshut eye.
Round the world for ever and aye?
"The Forsaken Merman"
Matthew Arnold. 1828-1888
hen you see one, yell!" Cindy Muniz,
Greenpeace volunteer, gives this advice to novice
whale-watchers before the boat 'Kai-Aku' sets off for
open sea
The sixteen passengers, clad in down coats, scarves,
hats and cameras, heeded her advice Unshut eyes
scanned the waves for whales, southbound Gray
Whales migrating to the Baja Lagoons for winter Two
sister boats, normally used for charter fishing, carried
more whale watchers who hoped to see a huge sea
mammal spouting for a breath of air
Kit Stockman captain of the 38 foot Kai-Aku and an
experienced whale watcher, says "it just depends on
what kind of mood they're in, I guess "
"Keep your fingers crossed, says Phil Ratcliff
Greenpeace volunteer It's kind of chancey, he
admits, but adds, "We’ve never not seen any "
Ratcliff's comments ring with a certain optimism
After all the weather conditions at Newport couldn't be
better sunshine, a slight breeze and a fairly calm sea by
anyone s standards
Although the Greenpeace-sponsored lark was an
adventure for the 67 participants, the primary purpose,
aside from seeing whales was to raise money for the
wildlife preservation and anti-nuke organization that
extends across the United States
The Eugene Greenpeace office sponsors of the
event for the last three years, had no problem filling the
three boats for Saturday’s and Sunday's outing Muniz
hopes that whale watches can be planned every other
week-end throughout Febuary and March
For Jon Cope, 15, this watch was a special birthday
present
"You can't just walk down the street and see a
whale," says Cope, who hopes to be an oceano
grapher
Steve Barron, a Creswell school teacher quips, "It's
r
worth it just to be out of the valley "
After motoring three miles out to sea. Stockman spots
one And then somebody else yells Almost fifty feet
away, a slick grey body skims atop the waves The huge
mammal spouts and then disappears
The Gray Whale belongs to the baleen branch of the
whale family Baleen whales, which include the Blue
whale and the Humpback, have a strainer-like plate
instead of teeth With this plate, they feed on small fish
and animals or "krill "
During the summer, from April to October, the Gray
Whales feed on the abundant krill in the artic seas The
whales, which can grow up to 45 feet long, refrain from
krill during their migration, surviving instead off their
stored fat
For the Eschrichtius robustus, the Oregon Coast is
part of a 12,000 mile trek that stretches from the
Chukchi Seas, up near the Bering Strait, to the Baja
peninsula near California
The Gray Whales make this migration annually, with
the pregnant females leaving the summer feeding
grounds in early October for the winter calving grounds
The heaviest flow of bulls, non-pregnant females and
young whales occurs during a three-week period this
month
Itty February, the females with newborn calves
pass Oregon on the northbound leg of the trip A
Greenpeace information sheet says that paleon
tologists suspect that the Grays have gone the same
route for 8 million years
"I enjoy watching them,'' says Stockman who has
been working and playing on the ocean all of his 29
years It's real nice to see something at peace with
nothing to worry about "
"Except for foreign fishing fleets, he adds
The whales swim about five miles offshore, well within
the United States' territorial waters and out of a foreign
harpoon's reach According to the information sheet
the whalers almost killed off the California whale
species, but after 1947, the animal was protected The
Gray Whale recovered and now approximately 16.000
abound along the Pacific coast
Apparently the California Grays’ cousins on the East
r 1 i
Coast weren't so lucky Whalers killed them oft two or
three hundred years ago
Asked if the animals knew what we humans wanted.
Stockman answers, I think so
They've got a brain," he says They know if they re
going to be hurt The info sheet told us that the Gray
Whale brain weighs about 10 pounds and they are
intelligent, sensitive creatures They will avoid a loud
noisy fanfare, noisy boats, and buzzing airplanes
When one skipper spied a whale in the distance he
gunned the engine Stockman explains "he ran up on
them pretty fast and they (the whales) sounded," diving
down deep, not to surface for another 15 or 20 minutes
— and then who knows where they'll spout
"See what ya did, ya took off and scared 'em he
scolds over the citizens band (CB) radio "They were
right next to ya "
The trick is to shut off the engines and drift, Stockman
says "When you cut the engines, (sometimes) they'll
come up and rub their barnacles off on the boat's
bottom." he adds with a laugh When that happened to
him. Stockman's boat bounced up and down
Although he's never seen a whale attack a boat,
Stockman once saw one flip a 24 foot boat with its tail
He notes that the boat's captain acted carelessly and
provoked the animal Stockman has also been in the
company of 150 killer whales, or Orcas. who surround
ed his tuna fishing vessel and played with it
While off the Oregon coast in a 30 foot boat, he saw a
90 foot Blue Whale, the biggest of them all. that made
me look small," he says
"Everytime you see one it's the same feeling all over
again," Stockman says with awe in his voice "It never
changes "
Story by Caroline Petrich
Photos by Bob Baker