Friendly Grey whales in San Ignacio lagoon

This is a video of our friendly Grey Whale encounter in San Ignacio lagoon, which is situated on the pacific side of Baja California in Mexico. The 'friendly' whale behavior is taught by the mothers to their calf's and began in this lagoon as a unique behavior in the 1980's. Only recently has the behavior been observed in other lagoons by calves (now grown up) who learned it in San Ignacio.

I took this video on March 13th 2011 around noon from locally provided (and government mandated) skiffs. Our base of operations is the Searcher which is anchored a mile or two away.

The lagoon itself is over 15 miles across and requires negotiating large breakers to get into it. Ships larger than the Searcher (a 95 foot fishing boat) cannot get in. The Mexican government limits the number of Pangas that can be operating in the lagoon at any given moment and essentially disallows any non-pangas chasing of the whales. Many of the Pangas drivers have been here for years and are able to recognize specific whales from prior years.

This arrangement provides an economic incentive for the locals to preserve the area.

The panga drivers are very careful not to disturb the whales. The whales must choose to approach the boat, not the other way around. If a whale is not interested the drivers do not press the matter. Only a portion of the lagoon is open to boat traffic. The whales get most of the lagoon for themselves without human interference. In addition, the drivers recognize specific behaviors such as mating and breaching and give whales engaged in those activities a lot of room. In prior years when the environment was more free-for-all, some skiffs would venture too close to aggressive whale activity.

The 'friendly' behavior involves mothers nudging their calf's over to the boat and encouraging contact. This video contains exception 'super friendly' behavior which only a few of the friendly whales exhibit. Most friendly whales approach, stick around for a short time, and then move their babies away. In some cases the calf's want to stay overly long and the mothers very carefully get inbetween them and the boat to end the encounter.

Mothers (conjectured to be multi-generational learned behavior) with this exceptional behavior stay for much longer periods of time and sometimes appear to desire contact themselves. But they are also very careful not to upset the pangas and can't get as close as the calf's.

-Matt

Category:

Travel & Events

Tags:

• grey whale
• Ignacio
• lagoon
• San Ignacio
• friendly whale
• friendly behavior

[MrMattZN]

It was a very extraordinary time even for an area known for the interaction. We were there for two days as part of a longer trip on The Searcher. Everyone got to touch a whale on the first day. That often doesn't happen and tourists have to be satisfied viewing the whales from a distance.

-Matt

[MrMattZN]

Well, nobody on the west coast hunts them any more, or ever will again. Whales that stray closer to Japan are at risk, though.

-Matt

[MECHcore]

You can clearly see that these beautiful animals dont fuck eachother over for money.

[Klinsk]

Great footage of interaction between man and animal. Nice to see that instead of "guy beats dog" or "girl drowns 400 cats" -_-

[angellinegirl]

this is awesome, thanks for sharing it, i've added it to my bucket list :)

[drs940]

They should have representation in Congress and UN.

[trebor3863]

I saw in a docu that the friendly behavior might have started some 25 years after the whale hunting stoped,i think it would be a good assessment since whales have allways been friendly.They were allways friendly,i assume that is why the hunting was so easy.Poor whales,they gave us their hearts and we just hunted them down to near extinction.That is to prove how forgiving they are since they came back to us after the hunting stoped.

[TaylorMunson]

i wonder what would happen if someone jumped in

[snakeawman]

id be pissed scared hoping that the whale doesnt mistake my little boat as food

[bergdragon]

Another side, If they want to let human get rid of the head's barnacles, I can be able to image easily why they did underwater. but, I think all life could be friends.

[LIKExTHISxBABY]

Amazing



[Seihbi]

When you kiss him, and he freaked out.. They would all die..

In the middle of the sea, with a little wooden boat?