Whale hope rides number wave

From the earliest days of exploration, mariners in Chile's cool southern waters marvelled at the abundance of whales.

A Jesuit naturalist wrote of the sea “boiling'' with the spouts of the leviathans.

Among 19th-century Nantucket boatmen, the island of Mocha was notorious as the stamping grounds of “Mocha Dick'', an ill-tempered sperm whale.

Why Herman Melville opted to substitute “Moby'' for “Mocha'' remains unclear, but literary detectives believe the vengeful whale helped inspire his dark classic.

Now, almost two centuries after the commercial carnage of Melville's era and 22 years after an international whale-hunting moratorium came into effect, some whales appear to be making a comeback off Chile's coast, where a proliferation of islands, fjords, peninsulas and straits creates tens of thousands of miles of shoreline.

In recent years, researchers combing remote crannies of this elongated coast have confirmed the presence of two seasonally resident populations of whales, including 100 to 150 humpbacks in the glacier-rimmed Strait of Magellan in Chile.

Farther to the north, closer to the seas once frequented by Mocha Dick, they have tracked several blue whales, believed to be Earth's largest-ever animal, at 100 feet long and more than 100 tonnes bigger than any dinosaur.

“The likelihood is that they were not completely hunted out, and these are remnant populations,'' says Bruce Mate, who heads the Marine Mammal Institute at Oregon State University and who worked to tag Chilean blue whales and track them via satellite.

“It just wasn't commercially viable to hunt till the very last whale.''

The bleached bones of butchered whales, sea lions, elephant seals and other ocean mammals still litter some Patagonian beaches like driftwood.

Guarded Optimism

Conservationists say it is too early to celebrate the comeback of a creature pursued to the verge of extinction.

Oil from sperm and right whales hunted off Chile's coast was once a prized staple, a globalised commodity with parallels to today's petroleum.

“It could be we're just seeing more whales now because of increased interest and tourism,'' says Barbara Galletti, who heads Chile's Cetacean Conservation Centre.

With the International Whaling Commission scheduled to hold its annual meeting in the Chilean capital Santiago, activists are pushing for a law that would declare a permanent whale sanctuary throughout Chile's territorial waters, where Yankee whalers once confronted Mocha Dick.

“This renowned monster, who had come off victorious in a hundred fights with his pursuers, was an old bull whale of prodigious size and strength,'' J.N. Reynolds wrote in 1839 in the Knickerbocker, a New York magazine.

“From the effect of age, or more probably from a freak of nature, as exhibited in the case of the Ethiopian Albino, a singular consequence had resulted — ‘he was white as wool!'''

Scientists in Chile are trying to unlock the secrets of the whales' migratory odysseys and assess the potential threats — not harpoon-wielding Homo sapiens, but global warming and pollution.

Of special concern are the salmon farms that have proliferated along Chile's dismembered coast, befouling sheltered stretches favoured by whales and other sea life.

Little is known about the ecological fallout from the ongoing boom in the production of salmon, an introduced species mostly exported to the United States, Europe and Asia.

Researchers worry about contamination, disease and parasites spreading from the tightly packed fish pens, as well as competition for food stocks.

Whales could also become entangled in salmon nets or be injured in collisions with boats.

Researchers collect whale fat samples to study them for potential contaminants and other information.

“Our hope is that that this can tell us more about the animals' health, their gender make-up, their genetic diversity,'' says Juan Pablo Torres, a marine biologist at Chile's Blue Whale Centre.

Conservationists are pressing the Chilean government to grant protection to the blue whale habitat off Chiloe Island, a swath of ocean that serves many interests: salmon farmers, fishermen and shipping companies.

No consensus has emerged. “I believe in protecting the whales but the fact is we can't live on whales,'' says Luis Miranda, mayor of Melinka, a salmon-farming centre facing the Gulf of Corcovado, a vital blue whale haunt.

Eyes Peeled

During the southern hemisphere summer and fall, binocular-equipped spotters in Melinka seek out blue whales' signature spouts, which sometimes send spray jetting 30 feet into the air.

The hilltop lookouts radio waiting researchers at Blue Whale Centre, who soon board boats to rendezvous with the goliaths.

Offshore, the sleek blue whales — their skin seems closer to a leaden grey-black — undulate through the water like enormous snakes, their booming respiration like rhythmic bellows in the salt air.

The whales survive on krill, a tiny crustacean that, in a paradox of nature, sustains the world's largest creature. Studies have suggested that global warming could be reducing krill, threatening the whales.

More than 1,000 miles to the south, near the tip of the continent, biologist Juan Capella carries on his mostly solitary research in a corner of the Strait of Magellan, known for its gale-force winds and mountainous swells.

In summer, the waters of the Carlos III Island hold a profusion of marine life. The star attraction: humpback whales. Unlike the krill-devouring blue whales, the humpbacks feed on sardines.

“A juvenile,'' Capella says of a humpback leaping out of the water like a submarine-launched missile. “He's here with his mother. It's good to see her back.''

For more than a decade, Capella has studied the resident whale population, identifying most by tail marks. He has tracked their migration more than 4,000 miles north, to breeding grounds off the Colombian coast.

“The whale has generated legends since antiquity, such as the story of Jonah,'' Capella says. “It was the base of an industry that generated wealth for hundreds of years.

But we know very little about the whale. Here we have a natural laboratory.''