Rick Tomlinson/Volvo Ocean Race
Wednesday 12 November 2008 14:00
By Riath Al-Samarrai
“It’s just over there,” said Mike Joubert, pointing to a grey spot barely 100 metres offshore.
“Just looks like a pile of rocks,” came the reply from a guy stood next to him.
In truth, there was little to distinguish the object either way. Until, that is, “the pile of rocks” suddenly disappeared from sight and returned a second later with its head peering in our direction.
“That’s called spy hopping,” explained Noel Ashton, a local whale conservationist. “It’s a female Southern Right Whale and it’s having a look around.”
So was her calf some 100 metres to her left. Noel smiled. He has been observing whales in Walker Bay, Hermanus for 35 years, stretching beyond a time when whaling was legal and frequently practised. The fact the whale population in the area is now strong enough to attract an estimated 210,000 tourists a year, shows how times have changed.
“When I first came here there were 15 whales in this Bay,” he said. Now, there are 140, and five of them are swimming right in front of us. “It’s an amazing increase, a real success story. These whales are reproducing at their maximum rate by doubling population every 10 years.”
It is a world away from the situation in 1935 when the species was the first to be protected as it had become critically endangered. “That’s not to say people stopped hunting them to the point of extinction,” Noel said. Indeed, so craved was it by hunters that the name “Right Whale” was decided by the guys with harpoons. “It was literally the right whale to hunt,” Noel added. “It has so much blubber (about 40% of its body mass) that when it’s harpooned it floats, whereas a Blue Whale would sink.
“Thankfully the situation has changed.”
The reasons why are numerous. On the one hand, the International Whaling Commission adopted a moratorium on commercial whaling in 1986, thereby telling its members that it was not acceptable to kill whales for commercial purposes.
On the other, the area of Hermanus, which incorporates Walker Bay, was decreed a Marine Protected Area in 2001, meaning no shipping or fishing could be undertaken within the Bay.
It is predominantly the latter point that has drawn Joubert, Nick Bubb, Ben Costello, Rodion Luka and Mark Covell of Team Russia nearly two hours away from Cape Town city centre.
'A Marine Protected Area is important to help preserve the species'
They have partnered with the Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society to help spread awareness of the society’s aim. Namely, that goal - supported by a petition to governments and international bodies which they hope will have one million signatures by the end of the race - is to create 12 large Marine Protected Areas around the world by 2012.
“The Southern Right Whale is fortunate in that the bays around South Africa, where they migrate to from the Antarctic for six months of the year, are not as heavily populated by shipping,” Noel says. “A Marine Protected Area is extremely important to help preserve the species.”
It is an effort that seems to have been appreciated by the day-tripping sailors.
Joubert, who grew up some 1,000 kilometres away in East London in the Eastern Cape, watched with amazement as one of the Southern Right Whales breached as he ate lunch. “I’m really lucky to see them a lot around here on our cycle routes,” he says. “It’s such an important part of the ecology around here that whatever we can do to make it better is only going to be good.
“It’s always nice to see whales when we are sailing and unfortunately it is becoming less of an occurrence. Even more the reason to make the conservation a worldwide programme.”
Luka added: “If you see dolphins or whales or any living thing when you are sailing thousands of miles, it brings the mood that much higher.
“It is so special seeing them in the wild. I think it is great to keep nature how it is. Somebody has to do this job to spread awareness and these people at the end of their life can say they really did something for our children.”
His son certainly seemed transfixed, while Covell’s daughter stood armed with a camera waiting for another breach.
“It is essential that the next generation adopt the attitude that these mammals are beautiful,” Noel says. “They are beautiful and we should do whatever we can to help save them.”