Hey!
Today I'm doing a flashback post! Around this time of year, three years ago, I was lucky enough to be invited to Laguna San Ignacio, a protected lagoon in Baja California Sur. For five days, I spent a few hours each day petting and kissing Grey whales. these beautiful creatures have finished their 6,000 mile journey from their feeding grounds in Alaska to the lagoons in Mexico, they have give birth and are preparing for the long trip back to Alaska. In March and April, the mothers are teaching their children all the things they will need to know for the trip back. This includes teaching spy-hopping, breaching, spouting, fluking, bubble blasting (my personal favorite), and showing the baby whales how to interact with humans - the babies can't be shy!
I also spent some time learning about other wildlife such as birds, tide pool creatures and the mangrove plants. One day we took a trip through the mangroves to a small island. This wasn't just any island though. Fifteen years ago, this island was to be the downfall of the sea life in the laguna, because Mitsubishi had plans to build a salt mine on the island. However, the sea life weren't able to cope with the extreme changes in salinity. The NRDC (Natural Resources Defense council) wanted to help the whales and other wildlife, and so they started their campaign against the salt works. After a lot of hard work and fighting, the war for the whales was over. NRDC had saved the day! Today, three different sanctuary's have been put into place aro
und the wildlife in Laguna San Ignacio. One for the whales,one for the birds, and one for the mangroves.
I really enjoyed this trip, and I believe that it was one of the most important factors in my interest in marine biology.
Whales - good luck to you on your trip back to Alaska! I hope to see you in 2016!
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| Fluking |
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| Breaching |
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| Bubble Blasting |
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| Spy-Hopping |
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| Spouting |
If you want to check out what NRDC
has to say about it, click on
this link.
