Cheering the Whales On

Around here in my neck of the woods, in San Francisco, the news has been occupied for the past couple of weeks on the fate of two whales, a mother and her calf, that somehow took a wrong turn at the Golden Gate on their way north up the coast toward Alaska. Instead they swam through inland waters up the Sacramento Delta, some 90 miles inland.

For two weeks wildlife biologists have attempted to coax the increasingly exhausted animals back to the sea, using everything from recorded whale song to fire boats spraying water over the whales in an attempt to show them the way back home. All with limited success.

Finally, over the American Memorial holiday weekend, the whales made progress, swimming past three of the five bridges they had to clear; with the Richmond and Golden Gate Bridges, and about 35 miles, left before the journey up the coast could continue.

Then on Tuesday morning the whales made a dash past all but the Golden Gate Bridge, resting for the evening off the shores of Tiburon in Marin County, just ten miles from the open ocean.

It’s looking better everyday, and everyone around here is cheering them on.

In the larger picture for whales, the International Whale Commission meets this week in Anchorage, Alaska, where the Pew Environmental Group will urge members of the commission to settle disputes and forge a consensus over commercial and scientific whaling.

Twenty-five years ago the commission adopted an international whaling moratorium, saving many species of whale from extinction.

Nonetheless, the past year saw more than 2000 whales killed through commercial and scientific whaling; more than any year since the moratorium actually went into effect in 1986.

The Pew Group hopes that efforts to help the whales are stepped up, or as managing director Joshua Reichert says, “…these animals face an uncertain future”.

At least there are two whales just across the bay from here whose future is looking much better than it did just a few short days ago.

They’re resting this evening, saving their strength for the final push through the Golden Gate to continue on their journey north.

If we can show such an outpouring of concern for two wayward whales, then perhaps we can find the same compassion for an entire species.

Source Material:
Planet Ark
The Pew Whale Conservation Project

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Cheering the Whales On

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