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Blue Whales (balaenoptera musculus)
The
giant blue whale is an animal that defies all superlatives. It is the
biggest, heaviest, loudest and fastest growing animal on the planet. In
fact, it is the largest animal that has ever lived on the face of the
earth... by a long shot. Attaining lengths of 80-90 ft., weighing 150
to 200 tons, they dwarf any other animal that has ever lived. (The
largest animal on land today is the African elephant which can attain a
weight of about 6 tons... the tongue of the blue whale
is heavier than an African elephant!) A blue whale has a heart the size
of a small car and an aorta big enough for a person to crawl through.
They grow so fast as calves that they can put on 200-300 lbs per day
just feeding on its mothers milk. By the time they are weaned, at 9mos
to a year, they are already over 50 ft. long - larger than most other
whales. (It's hard to look at a 50 ft. long anything and think of it as an infant!)
A
baleen whale like the humpback, fin and Sei whales, the blue feeds
almost exclusively on krill, small shrimp-like organisms that are
especially abundant in the Santa Barbara Channel, particularly along
the northern edge of the Channel Islands. A single blue whale requires
as much as 4 tons of krill per day to sustain their incredible bulk, so
feeding is pretty much an all day and all night affair. Blues are
frequently seen feeding in the same krill patches as humpback and fin
whales. In fact, during the peak of the whale feeding season in the
Santa Barbara Channel, it is not unusual to see 5 or 6 different
species of cetaceans (whales and dolphins) all in the same area at the
same time.
This channel is generally
considered to hold the highest concentration of blue whales in the
world during the months from June through August... at times as many as
100 blues along a 30 mile by 5 mile stretch. They are very fast
animals, capable of 25 knots, and can move hundreds of miles to another
feeding area in a very short time. Individual animals will often move
from the Santa Barbara Channel to Monterey Bay and back in a matter of
weeks. This speed was responsible for very few blues being taken by
whalers during the days of sailing ships... they just couldn't catch
them. With the advent of steam powered catcher ships, however, and the
exploding harpoon head, the blues became prime targets. During the 20's
and 30's as many as 30,000 blue whales were taken in some years, and
within just a few decades, the original population of, perhaps, 300,000
animals were reduced to fewer than 10,000 (some estimates put the
number at less than 5,000) today.
Sleek and
sculpted, with an astonishing, almost neon blue color under water, the
blue whale is one of the most beautiful animals in the ocean - and, in
spite of their experience with man and whaling ships, are often
surprisingly friendly around boats. It's not unusual to have "friendly
approaches" where the animals will come to the CONDOR EXPRESS,
sometimes directly underneath us, and check us out.
Blue
whales are seen daily in the Santa Barbara Channel during the months of
June - August, sometimes staying as late as November. The CONDOR
EXPRESS runs daily trips during this time departing at 8am to visit
with these beautiful critters and cruise along the coast of the Channel
Islands on the way home. On weekends and holidays we also run again at
1:00pm returning at 5:30.Few people on Earth have ever experienced
these magnificent whales! Join us for a trip of a lifetime.
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