Part 4

Filtering whales, unlike the gregarious porpoises and dolphins, seldom school. Even when they appear to be abundant in a limited area, they have congregated for feeding and not for social interaction. Toothed cetaceans, on the other hand, are generally sociable. The sperm whale travels in large groups of females dominated by a single bull whale. The other males have been driven away and the victorious male exercises control of the harem only as long as he wins these contests. Once the dominant male is defeated, he becomes a solitary individual.

Enemies

Killer Whales

Whales, by virtue of their size and speed, are not preyed upon by other animals. The killer whale, however, has the size and inclination. Generally, it is content to capture seals, sea birds, and fishes, and it does not range too far from this prey. There have been isolated reports of killer whales attacking the gray whale. The gray whale is described as being very disturbed whenever a killer whale appears. On the coast of Siberia the gray whale will hide in very shallow water and if cornered is said to go into shock, floating at the surface, stomach up, while the killer whale bites at the tongue and flippers. Perhaps reports like this have been improperly interpreted. It is easy to understand how killer whales would congregate around the catch of the whaler. Recently studies on the loss of hooked tunas from the long-line fishery of the Japanese, show that killer whales are adept at stealing fish along the setline. Additional studies on the natural history of the killer whale must be made before its relationship to other whales can be properly assessed.

Parasites

If whales generally lead a charmed life with respect to predators, they still have their share of parasites both external and internal. Their huge bodies are ideal platforms for the growth of barnacles which have specialized for this unusual habitat. Another very annoying skin parasite is the whale louse, which is a flattish small crustacean which clings by claws to the delicate skin. The digestive tract of the whale provides a wonderful habitat for round worms and tapeworms. Like their host, these parasites are the largest of their kind. Other organs such as the kidneys, liver and lungs are infested too.

Sperm whales suffer from another affliction which is an obstruction of the intestine by a fatty concretion which forms from the bile. Ordinarily these are passed from the digestive tract when small, but if they are retained and continue to grow, an obstruction is possible. The material is a grayish wax which is known as ambergris. It is used by the perfume industry to make permanent blends of various fragrances. Most of this material is obtained by whalers when they process the sperm whale. Only rarely does the material float ashore after the death of the unfortunate producer. Nowadays the value of ambergris is but moderate.

Whale Abnormalities

Whales are found with healed broken bones which must have been incurred by fighting and other collisions. The skin of whales is mottled with scars which were produced by parasites and by fighting. Toothed whales are especially scarred from the raking by the teeth of an adversary during battles for dominance. For at least 5 centuries, man has preyed on the whale. In recent times navies of several nations have been alarmed by unidentified underwater objects which cannot easily be distinguished from submarines. Some of these contacts are produced by whales. The counter measures not only cost the whale its life, but also causes the navies unnecessary expenditures of depth charges and time, and produce considerable tension and anxiety.

Inadequate Knowledge of Whales

Whales have been extensively described both in popular and scientific writings. However, their story is by no means complete or correct. It will be many years before all the information can be obtained on these animals which range the wide oceans where man must study them under great disadvantage. Until man has the underwater mobility and maneuverability of whales, he will have to be content with surmise and interpretations based on limited observations.

There is a great deal known about the anatomy and fine structure of whales. You can certainly admire the work of the early anatomists who persevered in dissecting the partially decomposed carcasses of stranded specimens. What a contrast to the opportunity afforded now to the anatomist who need merely be present on a whaling ship station to receive any part which he wishes to examine. It takes the whaling station 4 to 6 hours to butcher a whale completely.

Naturally, the whales which are currently the object of research are those which are commercially important and available. The California gray whale which would be convenient for study is no longer taken commercially. Permission would have to be obtained from the International Whaling Commission to secure even a single specimen, and a scientist could not easily obtain a specimen without the assistance of whalers. Fortunately, we know a great deal about the species as a result of an extensive monograph prepared nearly 100 years ago by Captain C. M. Scammon, who was among the first to whale this animal commercially. Professor Edward D. Cope described the species, giving it the name Rhachianectes glauca, after he examined a skeleton which had been shipped to him at the Philadelphia Museum.

Roy Chapman Andrews of the American Museum prepared the first detailed description of a living specimen which he found at a Korean whaling station. At the time of his report the species had not been seen for many years and had been believed extinct. More recently Russian scientists published considerable material which they had obtained from Russian whalers who had continued to take an occasional specimen during the thirties of this century.

They made a detailed study of the food of this whale, and they clearly showed that the herd which summered in the Sea of Okhotsk and wintered off Korea did not intermingle with the Siberian herd which wintered in the lagoons off Lower California. For the last 20 years or so, the species has enjoyed protection from whaling on an international basis. Since 1947 whaling scientists of the Canadian and American fishery agencies have published data principally on the recovery of the California herd, and to a degree have filled in some of the gaps in its life history. There is still a great deal to be learned, and it may be that some of the published observations will have to be revised or discarded. It is likely that the California gray whale is quite similar in many of its biological details to those which appear to be general in the commercially important species.

California Gray Whale

Evolutionary Place

It should be kept in mind, however, that this whale is the most primitive of the living baleen-bearing whales, and it seems to represent the point in the evolutionary sequence from which the two main groups diverged. The California gray whale is the sole survivor of a family of whales which in past eons was represented by many species. It has a smallish head with a limited filtering mechanism. Its dependence on foods which are found only near to shore is considered further evidence that it is primitive. Likewise its need for harbors to calve suggests that it has not lost its dependence on the nearshore habitat, even though it can safely cross the wide Pacific. The extremely restricted and separated distribution pattern of the whale is typical of an old, primitive species which persists either in its preferred ancestral home, or which occupies less desirable habitats into which it was forced by the more successful species. Recently gray whale remains were found in the Netherlands, and it is possible that it was exterminated in European waters by prehistoric whaling prior to the Ice Age.

Geographic Distribution

Today the species is restricted to two distinct populations existing on opposite sides of the Pacific. One herd summers in the Sea of Okhotsk, migrating southward to Korea where, in the open bays, calving takes place in January, February and March. The larger population summers off the coast of Siberia and Kamchatka, migrating clear across the Pacific Ocean to California and then south to the breeding lagoons near Bahia de Sebastian Viscaino, situated on the outer coast of Baja California. A few whales have been noted around the tip of Baja California and in the gulf itself. These are part of a small group which calve in lagoons along the mainland of Mexico just inside the Gulf of California. It has been suggested that the recovery of the species was possible because these lagoons were unknown to whalers. It is, however, unlikely that the whalers continued to whale until they had completely wiped out the populations of the main lagoons. The inability of the species to support intensive whaling suggests both a limited population and an animal with a low reproductive potential. Since 1850 there have been three brief periods of whaling, each separated by about 20 years. Each succeeding period of whaling has been shorter, suggesting that 20 years is not a long enough recovery period.

Shore Habits

Generally speaking, shallow water is dangerous for the larger whales, other than the gray and right whales. Strandings of the other species do occur, which can be interpreted to mean that these whales are not afraid of shallow water. However, when they strand they die. The cause of stranding is difficult to determine. Perhaps the victim is sick and drifts ashore. Most strandings occur during severe storms which quickly obscure the bottom features by stirring up the sand and mud. The stranding of the pilot whale is most dramatic because entire groups will come ashore as if afraid to go back to sea. If man intercedes and helps free them, they still refuse to escape. The cause of the panic and subsequent action is unknown, although it is unlikely that the action is mass suicide as so colorfully described in newspaper accounts. Most other strandings suggest that the whale was out of its normal habitat.

The gray whale, however, has no difficulty in this dangerous region, and in fact they negotiate the treacherous turbid channels of the lagoons, notwithstanding the strong tidal currents which flow through them. They have also been observed rolling in the surf in water barely deep enough to float them. Should stranding occur, they seem to realize that it is only momentary as another swell will come along to free them. For the other species, stranding produces fright and struggling which only exhaust them and lodge them deeper into the bottom. Death usually results from overheating, although it is noted that a stranded whale finds it difficult to breathe normally because the weight of the body out of water crushes the chest cavity.

At the present time it is difficult to understand why the lagoons are used by the gray whale for calving. It may be an ancestral behavior trait which has been inherited. It is most likely, however, that the quiet waters facilitate birth and nursing during the time the baby is gaining strength for the long migration. The observation that the whales may roll and rub themselves against the muddy banks has led to some conjecture that the lagoons help control the skin parasites.

You may wonder whether the lagoons, which are limited in number and in extent, may control the size of the population. Lagoons are subject to change in size and depth through geologic processes, and they may be created or destroyed. The lagoons which are used by the whales are remote and seldom visited by man. You wonder whether the whales would continue to use them if they were also used much by man. The California gray whale has not used San Diego Harbor for over 100 years. Perhaps San Diego Bay was used because the other lagoons were then overpopulated. Certainly the total population of whales has never again reached the numbers which existed before the whalers started.

Scientific Description

It has already been mentioned that the gray whale was described by Professor Cope in 1868-69. The scientific name by which he tagged it, Rhachianectes glauca, describes the fact that the whale is blue-gray in color, and that it frequents rocky reefs. Because the species did not resemble any other whale, he placed it in a separate family, the Rhachianectidae. Cope was not aware that paleontologists had found and described fossils of whales which were very similar to the gray whale. Of course, the paleontologists working in Europe did not know that there was a living representative of these fossil whales which they had named Eschrichtius. However, this oversight was finally realized by Dutch cetologists Van Deinse and Junge, who in 1937 corrected the mistake by placing the gray whale in the genus Eschrichtius, discarding the old genus name Rhachianectes. If you wish to search the scientific literature on the gray whale prior to 1937, you must look for it under the old name Rhachianectes. This is not the first or last time a scientific alias will be produced; yet this one serves to dramatize the fact that the gray whale is truly a living fossil, which is a reminder of some of the evolutionary steps over which the other whales passed to gain the structural and behavioral features needed to occupy the many areas of the oceans.

Reaction to Whaling