Page 108 - Dark Matter Women Witnessing

Awakening Boddhicitta: the Grey Whales of Baja

In the winters, the Pacific grey

whales migrate from their summer

home in the far northern latitudes

to the protected lagoons of the

Baja Peninsula of Mexico, where

they mate and bear their young.

These whales are known for their

close and extended interactions

with humans, and have been

named “the friendly whales of

Baja.”

The lagoons of Baja were once the

scene of some of the most brutal

episodes in the long history of human predation on whales. The whaling boats would trap the

whales in the lagoons as they came to give birth, killing the young. Stories of enraged and

grieving mother whales hurling themselves at the boats and breaking them in two were

common. Eventually, the whaling ended, and the grey whales continued their migration,

mating, and calving in the lagoons.

One day in the 1970’s, a local fisherman was out in one of the lagoons when a mother grey

whale approached his boat. She came close, and then lifted her baby up to him, close enough

that he could reach out and touch the young whale. Since this time, generations of mothers

and baby whales have invited and welcomed interaction with humans in the lagoons all up

and down the Baja coast. Some of the adults still bear harpoon scars. They circle close to the

pangas (small fishing boats), and they often invite and welcome human play and touch,

coming back over and over again.

The experience of being in these lagoons with the grey whales is profound. Whales fill the

waters, coming close to the boats...spy-hopping, breaching, bringing their calves alongside,

circling again and again to be near the people and the boats, rather than swimming away.