Carl Safina

Makos in the north, baby Blue Sharks in the South. That’s part of the pattern we’re seeing.

Yesterday morning, our first set—in 900 meters of water only about 15 miles from Santa Monica Bay—garnered a Shortfin Mako of about 200 pounds and a five-foot Blue Shark.

The Mako—a tough customer—got outfitted with the two kinds of electronic tags, as I described earlier in the trip. The combined price of the two tags is $5,500 per shark. It’s a commitment to science that must not be wasted when it comes time to use the information to manage fisheries.

More of the Makos are bearing wounds from Humboldt Squid, and one of the Blue Sharks coughed up a couple of squid beaks. It’s a violent world in every dimension.

This morning’s breathless dawn found us in a slick molten-looking sea 40 miles off San Diego. The overcast that had broken yesterday returned; turning the water slate gray under a dense ceiling.

Whales and dolphins have kept us in good company all week. While we were setting this morning a pod of big, blunt-headed, high-finned Risso’s Dolphins followed a Minke Whale’s appearance. The afternoon brought Short-beaked Common Dolphins.

We’ve moved south of most Makos and are into water where swim the tiniest Blue Sharks I’ve ever seen. Many of our hooks came back bare or with bait bitten in half, apparently from sharks too small to get hooked. The 21 sharks we caught were mainly less than three feet. And though we lost the largest Blue of the trip—nearly nine feet long—we also caught perhaps the smallest Blue Shark of this tagging project: less than two feet from nose to tip of tail—virtually newborn.

In all we tagged 21 Blue Sharks today.

Carl Safina

We’re now off Anacapa Island, under the first blue sky all week. Mainland mountains are just visible in the haze.

Last night we spent a couple of hours jigging for Humboldt Squid and caught two “small” ones that were the largest squid I’ve ever seen alive. Today, no fewer than three of the Makos we caught had squid sucker marks on them. Because the marks were concentrated on or around the head, it appears the sharks are attacking the squid and not vice versa.

The seas have built during the day, with a 5-foot breaking swell coming from the west, yet no wind. It’s still comfortable; the crests are far apart.

This area is alive with dolphins, and several times today we were treated to the sight of Common Dolphins in schools of dozens, ripping through the surface like tuna, followed by flocks of gulls, pelicans, and Sooty Shearwaters trying to get in on whatever small prey fish the dolphins were chasing.

The morning set garnered two sizeable Blue Sharks in the 6 to 7 foot range, and 5 Shortfin Makos around 4 to 5 feet. The afternoon haul brought five Makos and another Pelagic Ray.

The morning’s last Mako must have just been hooked when we hauled it; it was not tired, not mellow, and not at all pleased. It did not go easy into the cradle, thrashing and slamming so wildly four people had to hold it down before Erick got the blanket over its eyes.

The afternoon swell caused the ship to pitch sufficiently that the cradle and platform were frequently plunged underwater, soaking the scientists working on their knees and bellies, reminding us that the ocean is, foremost, a wet place.

— Carl Safina

DAY FOUR

Just a few miles away, the high-rising shoulders of Catalina lost themselves in low-hanging overcast. The dawn sea looked pewter—moody and lovely.

Fishing was excellent but catching was slow, to paraphrase an old joke. Our morning haul-back brought just two small Blue Sharks. We did see an Ocean Sunfish (Mola mola) and glimpsed the swift fin of a Minke Whale (rhymes with kinky) and a big Risso’s Dolphin, and later a pod of Common Dolphins came streaking through the waves, shadowed by a retinue of Elegant Terns. In other words, non-stop grace and wonderment, as usual.

On the afternoon haul, something simultaneously auspicious and ominous: one of the braided cable leaders came up chewed through. I would not have thought that possible. It’s hard to imagine something capable of doing that and still being interested in sucking in one of our 10-inch mackerel, rather than, say, eating a sea lion, but odd stuff happens at sea. The set brought two Mako pups. Suzie invited me to do the tagging, which I duly did for the pups.

Then on one of the last hooks hung a larger Mako, about six feet long and about 170 pounds. The larger animal would get the two kinds of electronic tags, and because applying these takes some practice, Suzie took over again. She led the animal toward us with the leader, and as the cradle dipped into the sea she pulled it over the perforated metal and yelled, “Up!” The water drained away and the Mako began thrashing, but we pounced on it as Erick Oñate-González put the thick blanket over its big black eyes, pulled up its pointy nose, and into the jaws of death inserted the ventilator hose. Quite a job description.

One of the electronic tags bolts to the dorsal fin and transmits its presence to satellites when the shark is traveling at the sea surface, thus tracking its cross-ocean travels.

The other tag looks a little like a cigar on a stalk that is anchored into the muscle; it records temperature and depth, then releases itself at a pre-programed time (about eight months from now), floats to the surface, and tells satellites the story of the shark’s vertical travels between the surface and the dark, cold depths. It’s incredible technology, revolutionizing our understanding of how animals use the ocean. Turns out that though Makos frequent the surface, they often dive to a thousand feet, rarely twice that.

While Suzie applied the tags, Erick held the head, kept its eyes covered, and kept the ventilator in place. That job takes nerve and concentration; you can’t get distracted or be caught by surprise if a shark this size suddenly thrashes. I helped “control” the tail, but in fact the shark stayed passive most of the time. I had the distinct sensual pleasure of having my hands on that beautiful sleek, cobalt skin, with its fine-sandy texture, and the strong, thick keel at the tailstock’s base. An exquisite, living sculpture; evolutionary art.

At one point as we rolled the shark slightly to check sex (male, indicated by its two penis-like misnamed “claspers”) the Mako started squirming and was working itself up to some violent thrashing. Anyone who has caught them on rod and reel knows Makos are capable of literally spinning out of control. I noticed that the blanket had slipped off its left eye, and when Eric quickly flapped it back on, the shark’s whole body instantly relaxed, its muscular tension utterly dissipating.

When Suzie yelled “Down!” and the cradle entered the water and we shoved that Mako forward, it took off like a shot.

And where do the sharks we’re catching in these relatively protected waters go? The tracking affirms that these sharks range widely up and down the California Current, west to waters north of Hawaii, down off Mexico, and generally becoming vulnerable to fishing boats from other countries in the open ocean. No sea is an island.

In the early 1990s there had been a small commercial fishery for sharks here. It had a temporary permit, and the permit was not renewed because the area proved to be a shark nursery. Thus this survey was born. Would that such wisdom prevailed world-wide.

In the last two decades the number of sharks killed has skyrocketed, draining the sea of many of its most compelling predators. I’ve seen the difference; the numbers of sharks we used to see in the 1980s was much greater than now. Everyone I know who has a history at sea says the same, as do a series of recent scientific studies.

Tens of millions of sharks have been killed annually, mainly for fins used as a thickener in soup, mainly since the mid-1980s. The number killed is almost certain to decline, not because international fisheries management—still dysfunctional over vast swaths of the planet—is likely get its ass in gear anytime soon for the benefit of sharks, but because the sharks will grow progressively scarcer.

In the present survey, there’s some evidence of decline in this population, but the trend is unclear. Year-to-year variability, based in part on weather and water quality (for instance, blooms of toxic red tides) affects numbers of sharks caught. So uncertainty remains about this shark community’s trajectory. More time is likely to clear the picture. But slow declines can be hard to detect for years, until real problems accumulate. That’s a problem in itself, because it delays action.

For example, many populations of albatrosses have been declining at rates of around just 1% per year (coincidentally, mainly because of incidental drowning in poorly regulated long-line fisheries.) It took too long for scientists to determine the declines were real, sustained, and significant. But over the course of just one working career for the scientists who were monitoring albatrosses, declines of 1% annually became population emergencies threatening some albatrosses with extinction. And yet in the last decade some real progress has been made in reducing albatross deaths. Bright spots include Alaska, Hawaii, New Zealand, the Falklands, South Georgia Island, and the Southern Ocean. That progress matters; it may yet save threatened albatrosses.

It also suggests that despite the history of most fisheries management worldwide, there remains hope for sharks. Certainly, these sharks we’re catching, many of them quite young, constitute hope with a mischievous grin.

— Carl Safina

The day dawned on a calm and overcast morning, my favorite sea weather, easier on the eyes than a million shards of sunlight shining like broken glass up from the water.

We’ve moved to a spot about eight miles southeast of Catalina. Where we fish is pre-determined by a sampling regime, not necessarily because we’re looking for the best spot to catch the most. So our catch rate varies.

The air was cool, in the 60s as we made the morning set. I baited about half the hooks and handed them to the clipper-person. Someone put a lineup of “late” Beatles classics in the PA system. All you need is love, 200 hooks, and several tubs of thawed mackerel, and the work goes smooth.

We caught a few sharks in the morning but the afternoon set was our most active yet, with a baker’s dozen comprised of Blue Sharks and one Mako. I remain impressed by the crew’s skill in sliding sharks into the cradle and then gaining control by grabbing them just behind the head.

It’s a bit hair-raising, and the phrase “If he hollers, let ‘im go!” popped into my head. The males are particularly rambunctious—a bad personality trait when combined with several rows of daggers in a vice. And while the Blues often blink to protect their own eyes when being bossed around, the Makos often swivel their eyes to watch who’s doing what. So far I haven’t seen a shark attempt to defend itself orally, but of course the risk exists; one bite would be too many.

The afternoon’s Mako, a sleek nearly-five-footer, had something I have never seen before, or even heard of: wounds from a Humboldt Squid. The Mako’s sides carried marks from rows of suckers, and slashes seemingly from the squid’s beak!

Suzie Kohin says such wounds just started showing up here for the first time last year. The big squid, which can weigh 75 pounds, have been expanding their range northward, invading California waters as they’ve warmed in recent years. Even in their more traditional range, the squid are more abundant because the fish that prey on them as juveniles—such as sharks and tunas—are overfished.

Who attacked whom? Dunno. The squid are notoriously aggressive—but so is the Mako, which regularly eats squid. My guess is the Mako attacked, and the squid defended itself. Either way, the encounter was violent, with intent to kill—like many in the ocean.

— Carl Safina

We’re still operating near San Clemente Island, between 5 and 10 miles from the shore. We’ve seen some Bottlenose Dolphins and distantly breaching whales. These waters between the islands and mainland, relatively sheltered as they are and well-lardered with small prey like mackerel and squids, serve as nursery to the sharks we seek.

We set our longline across a place called Emery Knoll, a hill that comes up to 1,800 feet from water 3,300 feet deep. There’s virtually no continental shelf off the West Coast, and these depths seem extreme compared to the East Coast, where, this close to shore the water would be less than 100 feet deep, and you have to go 75 miles offshore to reach water 600 feet deep.

Out of 200 hooks, we’re catching about four animals per set. Longlines are notorious for catching lots of unwanted creatures. But our longline has caught only what we want. That’s because the wire cable of the line and leaders scares away shyer fishes like Swordfish and tunas. We’ve caught only Blue and Mako sharks, and one Pelagic Stingray.

The stingray is a strange animal to be a wanderer of the open ocean. It looks like it should be a bottom dweller, and it’s hard to imagine it catching open-water prey, which it apparently does by cloaking it with its wings. It’s also dark above and dark below, which would seem to make it an easy mark for Makos. Whether they indeed attack or avoid the stinger-equipped rays, I don’t know. Our captive, being studied by one woman on board, is spending an extended visit in a large plastic box about 4-feet x 4 x 4, on deck.

One thing true of longlines in many places is true for us, too: we’re catching a lot of babies. But we’re interested in catching babies. Each of the Blue Sharks we’ve caught and tagged has been quite small, less than three feet in length. But very pretty. The blues of the sharks is the color of the open ocean. It’s just gorgeous.

The Makos have ranged around 30 pounds, but with some larger. We’ve seen two that were a little over a hundred pounds and one well over 200 pounds, about seven feet long.

Among my favorite animals, Makos are ballistic missiles, bullet headed, huskily torpedo-shaped and one of the few warm-bodied fishes. They are fearsome and lovely in the extreme. This juxtaposition, and the intensity with which they display both extreme menace and extreme beauty, make them addictively compelling creatures.

One of the little Makos came up dead. Nobody likes this – we’re here to tag and release after all. But the animals aren’t wasted. From the small Mako that died the scientists collected the brain, eye muscles, and stomach for an enzyme study. Its gills carried parasitic copepods that were sucking off some of the shark’s blood, causing the gills in that area to look enlarged and anemic. The copepods seemed to gather where water-flow was least. It was pretty interesting.

As for the rest of the animal, our galley steward grilled the meat in steaks. It tasted so good, it made me sad. Years ago I thrilled in catching Makos on rod and reel, occasionally killing one for the table, and stocking my freezer with delicious steaks. We had some great barbecues back then. Those feasts are taking on the patina of “old days” memories. The taste of these Mako steaks was like a sudden whiff of a scent from childhood. It made me realize how much I missed those times.

I have caught a few Makos in recent years but for nearly a decade have released them all, because in the Atlantic where I fish, larger Makos have become scarce. In fact all the larger shark species in the Atlantic have declined precipitously due mainly to commercial overfishing. Some, like Dusky and Hammerhead sharks, are so scarce we simply don’t see them anymore. I still see people bringing Makos to the docks, but everyone knows the fishing isn’t what it was, and I just don’t feel right killing them anymore.

But I miss the days when I felt I could take a Mako for the table now and then. The world seemed richer, and it was.

- Carl Safina

I awoke at sea about 60 nautical miles northwest of San Diego. Greeting me on deck at 6 a.m. was dense fog and an ocean slick-calm.

Courtesy of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, I’m aboard the U.S. government ship David Starr Jordan.

This cruise is part of a shark abundance survey that started in the mid-1990s. We’ll also be doing some oceanography, taking profiles of temperature, salinity and depth, and doing sonar transects to get some measure of plankton. Tax money well spent, for a change.

Mainly we expect to be catching, tagging, and releasing Blue and Mako sharks. I’ve caught these with rod-and-reel on my own boat, and I’ve seen some brutes. But this is a nursery area, so we’re expecting mainly baby sharks.

We’ll try to see how many sharks are out there, says chief scientist Dr. Suzie Kohin. The fishing method is a “short” longline: two miles of cable with 200 hooks. (Commercial longliners often use 25 miles of line, sometimes twice that.) The hooks are J-shaped, steel, with 2-inch shanks and a 1-inch gap.

We start making our first set just after 6 a.m. The cable is stored on a big drum about four feet in diameter.

The end is run overboard through pulleys and tied to a big buoy with a flag. The boat moves slowly forward, pulling the line out. Hooks and leaders have to be attached as the line goes out.

The hooks are kept racked along the rims of large plastic garbage pails, about 100 to a pail. The pails hold the leaders, about 12 feet long. At the end of each leader is a large stainless snap that grips the longline.

Two people pick out hooks and hand them to two other people who bait them. The bait is dead mackerel, and the hook goes in the mouth, out the gills, and then into the body.

The baited hooks get handed to the person designated as “clipper.” Every five hooks, a brightly colored buoy gets clipped on.

My job is buoy boy, and to qualify you have to count to five. In practice this is much more difficult than it sounds. Suddenly the most important question in my life is, “Was that the fourth hook, or the fifth?” At any rate, our wake is soon marked by a line of bright, bobbing buoys, looking festive.

Raining on the parade is a California Sea Lion diving among the baits. If he’s hungry, he’s relieving each hook of its bait. We can only look on helplessly, hoping he’s already had a hearty breakfast. Many commercial and recreational fishers hate these animals – and the Marine Mammal Protection Act.

Setting takes nearly two hours. We let the line soak about three hours. Then, with the hazy outline of San Clemente Island just 4 miles west of us, we start hauling, starting with the last hook set, everything in reverse. Turns out the sea lion did not strip our baits.

Baited hooks start coming back just as they went out. For over 20 minutes, it’s hook after hook. And then the sharks start.

At 10:26, a small Blue Shark turns up on a hook. It’s less than three feet, one of the smallest blue-dogs I’ve ever seen. Its leader gets unclipped from the main line and it is led to the back of the ship and into a cradle. The cradle is raised out of the sea and the scientists, on their knees on a platform, get to work.

Suzie and two assistants cover its eyes, and put a hard plastic hose-end into its mouth to keep it ventilated with water and oxygen.

This quiets it.

They insert a streaming numbered tag that is anchored into the skin with what looks like a small steel arrowhead. Into its dorsal fin goes another tag that looks like a cattle ear-tag. A snip of fin goes into a vial for DNA analysis, and some blood is drawn. The shark then gets an injection of tetracycline, which will reveal its growth rate if it is eventually killed and returned by fishermen for the offered reward. Some of this bothers me, honestly, but I understand the value in it. Sharks certainly need better management. We need the information on which to base good management policies.

This baby Blue is followed by two others and four Makos. Only one is male. One of the Makos is a husky five-and-a-half-footer, about 110 pounds, with a thick, sleek body. Because of its size, it gets a couple of high-tech tags, one to track it via satellite and another that can store information about its vertical travels.

When it gets released, it bucks out of the cradle like a thoroughbred, and vanishes before the bubbles clear.

- Carl Safina

June 17, 2007
My friend Pastor Ken Wilson from the Vineyard Churches wrote this variation on the Beatitudes. As anyone working to conserve nature is steeped in bad news and must work from hope, this reminds us of the power and beauty at the core of our concerns and efforts. – Carl

The Beatitudes for Ecologists/Environmentalists

Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Blessed are those who know how little they know and are therefore willing to listen to the world to see what it says about itself. Theirs is the path that leads to whatever wonder there is to be found.

Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.

Blessed are those who understand that all is not well. Blessed are those unwilling to drink the Kool-Aid of false hope that says otherwise. Blessed are those who know we are in the process of losing something. They are the ones with any real of hope of changing things.

Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.

Blessed are those who understand that the earth is a gift of inestimable worth. In the end, they are the only ones in a position to receive it.

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.

Blessed are those whose souls ache with a sharp craving for things to be better, for the wrongs we are inflicting to be righted, for the course we’re on to be corrected. Those who have such hunger are the first in line for its filling.

Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.

Blessed are those who long to use their power to give what is endangered a chance. Blessed are those inclined to cut what is standing in the path of our greed some slack. They’ll be given the slack they need to survive when the time comes.

Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.

Blessed are those willing to refuse illusion. They are the ones with a vision ruthless enough to perceive God.

Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called the children of God.

Blessed are those willing to do what needs to be done with those who are needed to do it. Blessed are those who are eager to make of their adversaries, allies. Blessed are those who are willing to call it creation if it will help to save it. They will be called cooperators with the divine.

Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Blessed are those whose concern for the forests earns them the “tree-hugger” title. Blessed are those whose love for the planet puts them in the “wacko” category. They are the ones who love heaven enough to want to bring it back to earth.

The Bluefin Tuna, that magnificent thousand-pound-plus, ocean-crossing, warm-blooded fish, is headed toward extinction in the western part of the Atlantic Ocean, that is, off the east coast and in the Gulf of Mexico. And this week the European Union agreed to what amounts to a plan for its collapse in the east Atlantic and Mediterranean.

The fishery managers call it a recovery plan.

Bluefin Tuna fishery managers live in Opposite Land. Opposite #1 is: “recovery plan” really means the fishery managers have agreed to an excessive quota that will lead to deepening depletion.

Bluefin Tuna fishing in the Atlantic is ostensibly managed by the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas. Thanks to this Commission, virtually every tuna, shark, and marlin species in the Atlantic is at all-time low numbers. This “conservation” Commission does not conserve; it does the opposite.

Its record with Bluefin Tuna is its worst. Its fishing quotas have always been far too high. And many of its 40-plus member nations routinely fish well past even these excessive quotas. Way back in 1982, the Commission enacted a “30-year recovery plan” for the west Atlantic. In 1998 the Commission came up with a new “20-year recovery plan” because, deep into the 30-year recovery period, west-Atlantic Bluefin were at an all-time low. The new recovery plan included several increases in the allowed catch. Now, the fish are so depleted that in 2006, U.S. commercial fishers caught only about ten percent of the allowed catch. Not that they weren’t trying; in 2001 a 444-pound bluefin tuna sold wholesale in Japan for $173,600. These insane prices result in such political pressure to avoid effective catch limits that managers do exactly the opposite of what they should do, and say the opposite of what they’re doing.

In the east Atlantic and Mediterranean, Bluefin fishing is largely out of control. Quotas are far above what scientists are recommending, and the numbers of fish killed are far above the quotas. So this week, after some tough talk by the European Union’s fisheries commissioner about the need to put a moratorium on fishing for Bluefin, he brokered the following deal that implements recommendations of the 43-member-nation tuna Commission: after scientists advised a catch limit of 15,000 tons, the agreed catch limit will be almost exactly twice that much. The European Union’s share of that catch will increase from 9,000 tons this year to 16,000 tons (source: Charles Clover, Daily Telegraph 6-12-07). Like I said, they live in Opposite Land. They’re calling it: the recovery plan.

Of course, it’s not a recovery plan, it’s a collapse plan. On our side of the ocean, the collapse is already upon the Bluefin because the Atlantic Tuna Commission and national fishery managers have always bowed to the same greed and political pressure to feed the same insatiable Japanese sushi market. The Bluefin of the east Atlantic and Mediterranean will likely follow. It may be poetic justice that the greed of fishers in the western Atlantic is turning to bankruptcy, and it will be a form of justice that this will likely happen in the east. But it seems there is no justice for the Bluefin itself, a magnificent animal whose only fault was to excel every other fish in the sea.

Saturday, June 2, 2007- Day Six – our final day of the trip

Our day began at the time a day should—at dawn. Before sunrise most of us mustered on deck for trip ashore and a walk in the cool sunrise desert of Isla Santa Catalina. As usual, a small contingent of birders fell behind the main group, lingering to listen to Verdins, Black-throated Sparrows, and woodpeckers. We enjoyed excellent views of Gila and Ladder-backed Woodpeckers. I was surprised to see Northern Cardinals, the same species that visits our feeder in the snows of winter, flitting brilliant red among cacti and thorn bushes. We got uncommonly good looks at Loggerhead Shrikes and Ashy-throated Flycatchers.

After breakfast a dozen or more people went on a long, vigorous walk much farther up the same arroyo (dry streambed) where we’d been birding at dawn. They enjoyed numerous cordón, barrel, and low-branching cacti and views of the granite structure of the island as they climbed upward, looking for lizards and the endemic rattle-less rattlesnake (they saw the former, not the latter). The hike entailed not a little effort and a bit of upward scrambling over loose footing. But it was worth gaining the ridge and a high commanding view of water on both sides of the island.

After a brief rest the group descended by a different route. Round-trip time: two and a half hours. A much smaller group went scuba diving at a site called Northwest Elephant Rock. Divemaster Vicky Showler led divers down to about 45 feet, for 40 minutes. The divers observed clouds of minute mysid shrimp and tiny iridescent blue copepods called Copilia. Fishes were abundant, with about 28 species seen, including Green Morays, King and Cortez Angels, various snappers, balloonfish, goatfish, guitarfish, puffers, surgeonfishes, pompano and Pacific Yellowtail.

Before lunch I spoke briefly about fisheries as a way of starting a “Lindblad Expeditions Forum” discussion about the state of the oceans and our role as seafood lovers in advancing conservation by choosing seafood caught with best practices. The discussion was animated, with lots of good comments from passengers and crew alike. It was great to be with people who want to highlight the plight of the oceans and discuss solutions, rather than sweep problems like overfishing under the rug and pretend everything in the ocean is “nice.” One passenger commented that she did not feel lectured to, but that the new understanding felt enriching. That was great to hear.

After lunch we re-positioned to the island Danzante. There people kayaked or snorkeled or just relaxed on the beach. We were treated to views of Mobula rays leaping repeatedly, flapping their fins in the air as though attempting to gain altitude. They looked joyful, and some of us started to swim to them hoping to get a glimpse from underwater, until I thought that maybe their exuberant leaps were frantic attempts to evade an attacking Bull Shark. We’ll never really know, but a new tongue-twister was born: “Multiple mobile Mobulas.”

So closes a wonderful trip, my first with Lindblad Expeditions and likely not my last. The crew was great, the boat was great, the scenery and wildlife often spectacular. The commitment to better awareness was evident throughout the ship, in the seafood choices, in the different waste containers for paper, plastic, etc., in the interest in discussing issues of the environment, and in various other details of how the trip operated. I felt comfortable with all of this. The ship, the beauty, the wildlife, the people—it made for an excellent week for me and for my family. I recommend it.

Friday, June 1, 2007 – Day Five

The destination was Isla Carmen, where I presented my work on albatrosses, talking about my book and about my recent travels to the world’s greatest albatross colonies for National Geographic. Activities included scuba diving on a protruding wreck that was home to numerous fishes, or, alternatively, a walk to a ghost town. The town was abandoned a couple of decades ago, except for a few people saying on as caretakers for the owners who run hunting trips. Most buildings stand empty, the basketball court unused for years. The church had statues of saints with offerings at their feet including shells and shark jaws. The walk continued to abandoned salt-evaporation ponds, where brilliant white salt looks like snow drifts in the tropics.

Thursday, May 31, 2007 – Day Four

While on our way to Isla San Marcos in the morning we were quickly greeted by a small group—50 or so—of Long-beaked Common Dolphins and a large group of Short-finned Pilot Whales, about 30 of them. Everything is relative. Common dolphins sometimes travel is schools of hundreds, pilot whales usually in much smaller groups. The pilot whale group included numerous babies, adult females, and adult males.

The males are larger, with bigger, thicker dorsal fins.

What I’ve been finding interesting is how full of life the Gulf still is. It’s true that the Gulf of California is badly overfished. The giant groupers are a thing of the past, the Totoaba, a huge fish of the upper Gulf, remains at low numbers, shrimp are depleted, and the world’s smallest porpoise, the little Vaquita of the upper Gulf, is also the world’s most endangered cetacean (since China’s Yangtze River Dolphin was recently declared extinct). The upper Gulf’s woes are due both to overfishing and the fact that the U.S. takes all the water out of the Colorado River before it reaches Mexico, which has had devastating consequences for the estuary-adapted creatures at the head of the Gulf. Yet what is not affected by greedy water management and overfishing remains quite viable. Humboldt Squid have increased in recent years, possibly due to reduction of their fish predators. Seabirds remain abundant, as do many marine mammals. While I would bet that all the marine creatures were much more numerous 200 years ago, I’ve been pleasantly surprised at—and delighted by—how much we are seeing.

At the island we enjoyed a relaxing afternoon of snorkeling, seeing lots of small fishes including lovely Cortez and King Angelfishes, Sergeant Majors, small stingrays, damselfishes, and a variety of others. Patricia and I also walked into the desert—quite a contrast—and I was amazed to see a small nesting colony of Great Blue Herons amid thorns, rocks, and cacti. Dinner was an idyllic beach barbecue featuring full-moonrise out of the sea. Most of the day today felt like pure guilty pleasure, and Patricia, Alexandra, and I all expressed concern that we were feeling spoiled and might have difficulty re-assimilating into society.