Blogs

Hello Great Whale Conservancy supporters and fans of Mz Blue!

Mz Blue, our 90-foot inflatable made her grand debut in Washington D.C. on Earth Day (April 22nd) and she made quite a splash.  A photo of Mz Blue covering nearly half a page was printed in the Washington Post the following day, along with an extended caption that summed up the ship strike issue and our commitment to moving the transit lanes along the Pacific coast.

The 2013 season has just come to a close and a remarkable season it will go down in history as being.  Our last week saw the winds gone, hence our freedom to roam the sea whenever and wherever we chose delighted us.  We traveled far and wide and saw a lot in this week.  Far to many blue whales to remember, dazzling pods of common dolphins and thousands of diving blue footed and brown boobies.  Sea Lions were observed spending far more time in the water as it is now warming and not sucking their energy out.  They laze about in large groups here and there with their f

The season is now winding down with one week left.  Blue whales continue to steal the show, being present the whole season in good numbers.  Old friends such as White Eyes and Nubbin have spent over a full month here, being observed on many days. 

Dolphin shows have been exceptional. We’ve seen huge numbers of bottlenose dolphins, and recently a pod of over 1000 common dolphins with diving, blue-footed and brown boobies all attacking a huge school of fish. 

The past week and a half produced both one of the most amazing gray whale encounters I have ever witnessed and an almost record number of hours on the Sea of Cortez for one week.

Great Whale Conservancy Co-Directors Mike Fishbach and Gershon Cohen recently spent some quality time with a few gray whale friends in Magdalena Bay, along the west coast of Baja Mexico.  Mike was down south for his annual winter work project, taking photo ID’s of blue whales in the Sea of Cortez.  When the wind kicked up in the Sea of Cortez, they headed west across the Peninsula to the Pacific side.  One can never see too many whales…  

We now are really into our blue whale season.  3 calm days in a row produced close to 25 blue whale sightings.  Whale friends we have known for close to 20 years showed up, old blue whales that seem to greatly favor the winter waters around loreto.  We had two different breaching humpback whales, as well as one day with well over a thousand bottlenose dolphins, many of which seemed to enjoy spending time near to the heads of various blue whales.  We spotted a young fin whale and a young brydes whale.  A highlight was seeing the ever present cow and calf blue whale s

Feb. 12 – Loreto  We have arrived for our 18th season here in Loreto.  After Loreto experienced  a very wet winter and very windy January we arrived on February 6th to a lovely calm and quite warm day.  Our first shock came at hiking up in our favorite wet canyon in the local mountains and seeing our favorite emerald green pool with a double fern lined waterfall in it COMPLETELY gone.

This past winter’s once in a century rains filled the pool up with so much earth and rock that the 12 foot deep pool is simply gone!!  We were beyond shocked.

It is that time of year again.  Many great whales have made the long swim into the Sea of Cortez to spend the winter feeding on the rich swarms of krill and nursing their young calves in the protected waters of the Sea off Mexico's Baja California Peninsula.

The Great Whale Conservancy's own Michael Fishbach will head down for his 17th season with the blue and other great whale species in their winter home.

Best of all is that Co Director Gershon Cohen will join Michael for part of the season down in Baja.

Don't miss the Saving Valentina story on ABC's 20/20 this coming Friday, August 19!

GWC welcomes your input. To share a comment, observation, suggestion and other feedback, please contact Michael Fishbach or Gershon Cohen.