Eschrichtius robustus - The Grey Whale

19th Century illustration of whalers being turned
 out of  their boats by an angry and defensive whale

The grey whale is unique. Like us, it is the only species in its genus and so has no close relatives. They are baleen whales, but not rorquals, and not related to the right and bowhead whales. So they stand, or rather swim, alone. They feed by ploughing up the sea bed and filtering out food from the mess. Their migrations are the longest of any mammal in the world. One whale, the record setter if you like, once made a round trip of 22 000 km. Among the rare literary allusions to the animal I have found is a children’s book about 'Wiggle the Grey Whale’, which deals with issues of climate change as well as some traditional story-telling themes, but it seems they are little understood by most of us.

Grey whale off  Israel in 2010

They are huge animals reaching up to 49 feet and 40 tonnes, equivalent to 5 full-grown African bush elephants. Like other very large whales, they are easy to spot and hold vast quantities of oil-rich blubber, so they were hunted almost to extinction: the Asian population stands at just over 100 individuals today and the Atlantic population is extinct (except for one whale who, in 2010, lost his way and accidentally swam from Alaska through the North West Passage and wound up in Israel). Happily the Eastern Pacific has a healthy recovering population of over 20 000 animals, from over 100 000 in the pre-whaling period. Clearly the rush for whale oil had a devastating effect on these animals.

Nevertheless, if you’re a whaler and you spot a right whale off to port, and in the same instant spy a grey whale to starboard, you're going hard to port, helmsman! Grey whales were known as ‘devil fish’ because, unlike the placid, defenceless right whales, they put up a hell of a fight when attacked. They would use their huge, powerful tails to smash the boats of the whalers, seriously injuring and sometimes killing the occupants. If the right whales were the 'right' whales to kill, grey whales were the wrong ones.

Tickling a whale's tongue

But that's all in the past: Hakuna matata!. Now that everyone has stopped trying to kill them, the grey whales are fast becoming known as the friendliest whales in the world. Fishermen in Mexico call them ‘amistosos’ meaning ‘friendlies’. They will approach boats and put their chins up on the gunwale, inviting humans to touch them. They’re very tactile animals and like to be tickled – they’ll even encourage their babies to come and make friends with the humans. Not devil fish, then. 

Calf resting on mother's back

I realise that there is a danger here of undue anthropomorphism, and we must exercise caution. The fact is, no one really quite understands this apparently 'friendly' behaviour. It may be that by resting their chins on the gunwales of boats, they are simply trying to scrape off barnacles, lice and other parasites. Allowing humans to pet them may be another attempt at same. We are inclined to attribute certain qualities to animals that we cannot know are there. 

This may not always be such a bad thing. One of the reasons that so many people are working to secure and advance animal welfare is that we feel a deep concern for certain creatures. Some of us are outraged by, and protest against, for instance, the farming and consumption of dogs in China, because we feel so emotionally invested in 'man's best friend' and believe they are 'intelligent' animals. Many who think this way are perfectly content to eat pork and other animal products with no concern at all because they haven't connected with pigs in quite the same way. The whalers of the 19th century, it seems, thought (or at least tried to convince themselves) that whales were just big fish, and hunting them was the most natural thing in the world. One reason so many people have got on board with Save the Whales and other similar organisations is that we feel cetaceans to be intelligent, emotional, perhaps even sentient beings, who deserve our love and respect and to be afforded special treatment (such as not hunting them almost to extinction). There is even a movement to award cetaceans, along with primates and elephants, the special legal status of 'non-human persons', with certain rights and privileges that come along with it. 

Perhaps whales are sentient. Maybe they have a sense of self. Could it be that they are able to apply reason? Do they have beliefs? We don't know. The best we can say is that we know enough to know we know not nearly enough. It's been said many times before but it bears repeating - knowing that we don't know much ought to leave us with a deep sense of humility. We are very poor at predicting how and to what extent our interactions with the natural world will impact on it, so we must exercise extreme caution. Certainly one way to encourage ourselves and each other to treat the natural world with more care is to engage with it and connect with it. If that means you treat your pet as a friend, or gaze deeply into the eyes of friendly grey whale and feel that you have understood each other, unscientific though it may be, perhaps it serves a useful purpose. So what do we call them? They have been known at one time or another as ‘desert whales’, 'scrag whales', ‘mussel diggers’ and ‘ripsacks’. No, I think I like ‘amistosos’. - the friendly whales. 

Grey whales cavorting in the ice
Charles Melville Scammon 1874

Wiggle the Grey Whale
by Tavaris Evans