The Breath of a Whale: The Science and Spirit of Pacific Ocean Giants

By Leigh Calvez

Discover the elusive lives of Pacific Ocean whales as the the New York Times–bestselling author of The Hidden Life of Owls “offers the whale watch most of us can only dream of” (Sy Montgomery, author of The Soul of an Octopus).

The perfect gift for nature lovers and anyone interested in marine biology!

Leigh Calvez has spent a dozen years researching, observing, and probing the lives of the giants of the deep. Here, she relates the stories of nature's most remarkable creatures, including the familial orcas in the waters of Washington State and British Columbia; the migratory humpbacks; the ancient, deep-diving blue whales, the largest animals on the planet. The lives of these whales are conveyed through the work of dedicated researchers who have spent decades tracking them along their secretive routes that extend for thousands of miles, gleaning their habits and sounds and distinguishing peculiarities.
 
Calvez author invites the reader onto a small research catamaran maneuvering among 100-foot long blue whales off the coast of California; or to join the task of monitoring patterns of humpback whale movements at the ocean surface: tail throw, flipper slap, fluke up, or blow. To experience whales is breathtaking. To understand their lives deepens our connection with the natural world.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Sasquatch Books
• Release date: Feb 26, 2019
• ISBN: 9781632171870

Book preview

PROLOGUE

DOLPHIN LESSONS

I swam through the warm, clear water out to the middle of Kealakekua Bay, on the leeward side of the Big Island of Hawaii. Filtered sunlight danced in rainbows on the rippled patterns in the sand below me. Dolphin sounds bounced around me, and I grew more excited as I swam farther out. I wanted something from them. I wanted to understand how it feels to be a dolphin, living in the sea. But I did not want to burden them with my human desires in the one place where they could rest peacefully. Would I interpret their actions correctly? And was this an appropriate time to be swimming with them? I found myself apologizing again for being human. We have caused them so many problems, from ensnaring them in fishing nets as bycatch, to depleting their food sources, to producing marine debris and pollution—both toxic and noise pollution. I considered swimming back to the beach. And then, I saw them.

I don’t remember how many were there; I remember only the mother and calf—two beautiful tricolored dolphins. The mother was slender in body, with a slate-gray cape coloring her top, from the tip of her long, narrow snout to her tail. A pale-gray stripe graced her side, from forehead to fluke, while her white belly gleamed. Across her eyes, a dark-gray mask colored her face from flipper to flipper. And she wore a gentle, enigmatic smile, like a Madonna of the sea. The calf, a miniature version of its mother, was still a little pudgy from baby fat. When the mother allowed the calf to swim between us, I felt certain she was not threatened by me.

As my distress shifted to wonder, the mother slowly moved closer to me, calf in tow. The rest of the pod had moved away, and I was alone with the pair. She looked me in the eye and began to circle me, her calf still between us. I moved slowly in the water, careful not to startle her, and turned to swim on my side to watch the mother and calf. You have a beautiful baby, I said silently, suppressing a smile to avoid filling my mask with seawater. Was she showing her calf to me, or was she showing me to him? I felt the tension that comes when it seems as if the heart can hold no more. I blinked away the tears filling my eyes.

I reminded myself to breathe. With deep inhalations and exhalations, my body calmed, and I floated alongside the dolphins suspended in the sea. My mind ceased its persistent thought, growing quiet, as if in meditation. Then I felt a voice in my heart say, Don’t feel guilty for being human. You are the guardians.

Startled, I continued my deep breaths. This was not a thought I had ever had on my own. I sensed the warm ocean swells sweeping over my back. The mother continued her steady gaze while I remained transfixed by her gentle, knowing smile. It was as if she had every confidence that I would do the right thing—as a steward. And in some primal space within, I allowed myself to accept my humanness and my place in the world.

Mother and calf circled me once more, and we swam along, side by side, while I watched the chubby calf fall into traveling position just behind the mother’s flipper. Then as quickly as she had initiated contact, our encounter was over. I watched the pair vanish into the gray-blue mist of the sea.

Since that interaction, I have often wondered about the message You are the guardians. For years, I’ve considered its meaning for myself and for other humans. At one point, I realized that as a scientist studying dolphins, I was their representative. I studied them to help protect them. As a steward, I felt a responsibility to share what I have learned about their lives and culture. But I never really considered the first part of the message—Don’t feel guilty for being human—until now.

IN THE BEGINNING

HUMPBACK WHALES

(Megaptera novaeangliae)

The life of the humpback whale is one of extremes. As one of the largest mammals in the ocean, its massive slate-gray to black body can grow to more than fifty feet, longer than a city bus. One humpback whale at about forty-five tons, or ninety thousand pounds, weighs the same as seven African elephants, the largest animals on land. With fifteen-foot-long pectoral flippers that outstretch like bird wings, humpback whales glide through the seas. These fins are the longest of any cetacean—the scientific order that includes whales, dolphins, and porpoises. The humpback’s scientific genus and species name, Megaptera novaeangliae, means big-winged New Englander. Around New England, these long wings are white, and they glow green in the plankton-filled waters of the North Atlantic. But in the Pacific Ocean, these flippers are more often the same slate-gray color of the humpback’s body on top, and white underneath. A humpback-whale tail fluke is about as wide as a small car is long, while the underside shows a unique black-and-white pattern, which allows easy individual identification, like a fingerprint.

Humpbacks are baleen whales, meaning that in place of teeth, they have 270 to 400 three-foot-long plates of keratin, the same substance fingernails are made of. Hanging from either side of the roof of a humpback’s mouth, each baleen plate has a fringe on the inside, like the decoration on a kitschy lampshade, to help the whale ensnare the fish it eats. As a member of the rorqual family of baleen whales (from a Norwegian word meaning folded whale), its throat expands like an accordion to engulf its prey, from as many as thirty-six pleats in its throat. Humpback whales feed by gulping mouthfuls of fish and water. The mouth of the humpback was once thought to hold as much as sixteen thousand gallons, as estimated from the carcass of a bloated whale on a beach. However, now it is generally believed to hold about five thousand gallons. The humpback uses its powerful tongue to press the water through the baleen plates, catching some of the smallest creatures in the sea. Dense swarms of tiny krill, about the size of a standard paper clip, or schools of salmon smolt, sand lance, herring, and anchovies provide the one ton per day of needed sustenance for the whales.

During the summer months, humpbacks feed in the northern latitudes of their range, while in the winter months, annual forays to Hawaii and Mexico require them to forgo eating. They swim the nearly three thousand miles one way in as little as thirty days to search for the one thing more important to them than food—sex, and a place to give birth. Over the next four to six months, as the males fight each other for mates and as the females give birth to and nurse their two-thousand-pound babies, adult humpbacks may lose up to fifteen tons of body weight. These clear tropical waters provide next to nothing for the whales to eat.

---

It was while the whales were in their feeding grounds storing up for their winter’s journey that I met my first humpback on a whale watch out of Gloucester, Massachusetts. It was a fine summer day in late June 1992. The water was calm over Stellwagen Bank, twenty-five miles east of Boston. I sat with my then-husband, Van Calvez, on the top deck, enjoying the cool ocean breeze as I eagerly anticipated seeing my first whale. I soaked up all the whale facts the naturalist shared during the long trip to the underwater bank. Then time began to drag. I tried to relax, watch the waves, and enjoy what was a rare ocean experience for a farm girl from Ohio. Still, I squirmed on the hard bench, trying to contain myself. This trip to see whales was a dream come true. Yet it was hard for me to believe it was even possible to see a whale, only the stuff of legend in my mind.

When someone shouted, Blow! everyone jumped up and ran toward that side of the boat. I scanned the water, but I had no idea what I was looking for. The naturalist had explained about the puff of mist of the whale’s breath. But where was it? I saw nothing. I looked around at the others beside me. They seemed to be searching too. Where was the whale?

The whale blew again, a powerful blast of exhalation, like seeing your breath on a cold day. There she was, swimming slowly and silently through the water. My first whale! My stomach fluttered with excitement, and my heart pounded. I raced to memorize every detail, in case this was my only brief glimpse. I checked See a whale off my mental list, thinking this was a once-in-a-lifetime encounter. I gripped the cold steel railing on the boat’s upper deck.

As the fifty-foot whale glided toward the boat, I thought, This creature doesn’t even look real. On either side of the whale, I noticed her long white pectoral flippers, glowing green through the water. As the whale moved still closer, I could hear her powerful breath. It sounded like a muffled explosion, followed by a high-pitched whine, like a tire being filled. A sense of ancient intelligence touched something deep within me. I recognized these giant animals had something to teach me. Millions of tiny droplets of mist rained down around the whale as a soft shower on the calm sea. I relaxed as a warm peace settled in around me.

The whale took another breath, arched her back, and lifted her tail out of the water in one slow, graceful movement, until perpendicular to the surface. I could see the unique fingerprint on the underside of her tail. I stood in awe as this enormous whale disappeared into the depths where only my imagination could follow.

There were several whales around that day, and I was transfixed by them all, watching their every movement. On the ride back to Gloucester Harbor, everyone on board seemed energized. As the sun warmed my face, I replayed our first sighting of the humpback in my mind. I’d watched grown men become as animated as children. I’d seen a mother lean over to whisper in her daughter’s ear. Then I saw the smile of recognition on the child’s face as she jumped up and down, pointing at the whale.

Now, people were laughing and exchanging stories about what had happened to them when the first whale was spotted.

Did you get a good picture? a man with two kids asked the woman beside him.

No, I left my camera upstairs. But I’ll never forget it, she replied.

I couldn’t explain it, but it seemed that whales inspired goodwill in people. I smiled to myself. I had not expected to be so moved by seeing a whale for the first time.

That night, as I lay down to sleep, I could still feel the gentle rocking of the boat. I dozed and drifted back to sea. In that space between consciousness and dreams, a dark shape suddenly broke free from the surface of the ocean. A whale propelled itself upward out of the water, blocking out the sky. Water streamed off its body, following the path of the leviathan, turning clockwise in slow motion, with long flippers outstretched like the arms of a dancer. Water erupted, white and foaming, as the massive body crashed backward into the sea, the impact shattering my small habitual life. New possibilities flooded in.

My eyes flew open. A whale just breached! I sat up, heart pounding. A wave of energy swept through my body, feet to head, and I fell back onto my pillow. Breathing heavily from the shock, I tried to make sense of what had just happened. My heart slowed, and I began to replay the extraordinary image again and again.

I had known myself to have this type of vivid dream before, in that state between wake and sleep, often relating to what I had experienced in a day, but this was different. The image of the breaching whale struck me hard, as if the power of the animal had washed over me, like a wave pushing me to a new level. I felt changed by this visit from one of these otherworldly mammals. Until now, I realized, I had been living my life as if asleep. If I had seen a grizzly bear, it wouldn’t have been big enough. It took a whale—in her oceanic realm with all her power and majesty—to awaken me to a new possibility for my life, to call me into something larger.

To satisfy my spiritual curiosity, I looked up the meaning of whale in the book Animal-Speak by Ted Andrews, which explains the symbolism of animals passing through our lives. I learned that whales represent creativity, the power of song, and awakening inner depths. I could not have known then how the whales would influence the course of my life. But I did know that I would apprentice myself to the ways of whales.

It took nine months for my life to change completely. We moved from Ohio, where I had lived all of my childhood, to Newport, Rhode Island. I went whale watching every chance I had. Filled with excitement and energy for my new life with the whales, I found an internship with the Plymouth Marine Mammal Research Center, which involved collecting whale behavioral data from whale-watching boats. I took excursions on the Captain John Boats, out of Plymouth, Massachusetts, soaking up all the information possible from the expert naturalists on board. I hung around long enough that I was finally hired as a naturalist for the company—my dream job.

From that point on, I wandered around in the world of whales, working as a naturalist, attending seminars and conferences, meeting whale researchers and photographers reading books about whales and the scientists that worked with them, learning all I could about the lives of whales. I began to behave like a biologist, hiding my interest in the metaphysics of whales for fear of being ridiculed for my belief in other ways of knowing.

Then, in January 1995 on a vacation to Hawaii, I attended the Whales Alive Conference on Maui, a place where humpback whales can be seen from the beach—a whale paradise. At the conference, I met Marsha Green, a psychology professor at Albright College in Reading, Pennsylvania, who shared many of my metaphysical beliefs. She had founded the Ocean Mammal Institute (OMI) to study the impact of vessel traffic and human-made sound on humpback whales in their calving areas. In the winter of 1996, as the study began, I took a volunteer position as research director for OMI.

I spent many happy research days perched on a raggedy lawn chair in the blazing sun atop Olowalu Hill, just south of Lahaina, on Maui’s northwest coast. Dressed in a white T-shirt, shorts, a baseball cap, and 15 sunblock on any exposed areas, I held binoculars to my eyes. With my elbows resting on my knees, I scanned the blue water of the Au’au Channel, which stretches between Maui and Lanai, for humpback whales. With the perspective we gained from our elevated station and the aid of binoculars, the whales were clearly visible when a puff of breath broke the surface. It was fascinating to follow and report the behavior of pods of mothers with newborn calves, single and paired adults, and massive heat runs of frenzied, bloodied males jostling and charging in competition for one female.

I trained groups of college-age interns to follow these focal pods for four-hour shifts in our land-based research study. Each team consisted of two spotters, to follow whales and call behaviors; someone to track the whales’ movements, using a theodolite, a surveyor’s tool turned whale-research instrument; and a data recorder, to write down the behaviors, movements, and times of each. Once our team was set for the day and our equipment arranged, we picked a pod of whales and recorded its behavior.

One January afternoon as I trained a group, I focused on an empty spot of ocean, waiting for the whales I’d just seen to come back to the surface. Okay, what’ve we got? I asked.

Mother and calf at ninety point three eight, two fifty-five point five four, the theodolite operator reported, giving the whales’ location by calling out the coordinates.

Got it, called the data recorder.

No boats in sight, said the other spotter.

Good. Let’s try to follow this pod for at least an hour, I said as I smiled. I was thrilled to assign the task of watching a mother and calf so close to shore.

Once training was over and the experiment began, I would have to make the tough decision of whether to include a pod such as this in the research study. During the study, we would record all the behaviors and locations during a fifteen- to twenty-minute before boat period. Then we would radio one of the boats in our study to move within one hundred yards and impact or disturb the whales. During the fifteen- to thirty-minute after boat period, we would continue recording positions and behaviors, to see if anything changed. If I chose a mother and calf, I would risk disrupting the mother-calf bond during this critical newborn period. But today, during this practice session, we could watch this intimate behavior between mother and calf without disturbing them.

Blow, the other spotter and I called simultaneously as our pod returned to the surface.

Baby pec slap, we called. The calf was playing at the surface, splashing her baby-size flippers as her mother rested just below.

Baby breach! we said next as the calf continued to play.

Baby breach! we called as the calf jumped again.

"Breach!" we yelled in unison as the mother launched her forty-five-ton body completely out of the water, like a salmon leaping in a river. She landed with a cacophonous splash that reached our ears a moment later, like distant fireworks. My heart raced with the thrill of watching this breathtaking behavior as the mother breached once again, along with her calf. I never tired of watching this wonder of nature—a breaching humpback whale. I smiled as the interns cheered and clapped.

We continued to record the behavior of the pair, calling out, Fluke up! or Peduncle arch, the name for a dive when a whale shows its enormous black-and-white tail or simply arches its gray back and disappears. The most fun to watch and record are the surface behaviors, such as tail throw, when a whale throws its tail fluke out of