Whales in Kelp Are Just Babies Playing, Experts Say

A young gray whale playing in the kelp beds along the Orange County coast over the weekend, in full view of people on the shore, may be only one of many such marine mammals to put on such a show during this year’s annual migration, according to marine biologists.

The calf, estimated at about a year old and 25 feet long, appeared in kelp beds off Laguna Beach’s Heisler Park last Saturday, city lifeguard Lt. Mike Dwinell said.

Some surfers, thinking the animal was tangled in the kelp, “sort of steered it back to open water,” Dwinell said. “Then on Sunday, it appeared off Oak Street Beach, and about the same thing happened. The whale didn’t seem to be hurt or in any trouble.”

Biologists said the young calf, which they believe has since gone on its way southward, may well be the same young whale seen frolicking in kelp near Palos Verdes Peninsula in Los Angeles County late last week. In that incident, observers first feared that the whale had gotten tangled in a fisherman’s net. But it, too, was guided to open waters by divers and lifeguards.

Dennis Kelly, professor of marine biology at Orange Coast College, said the actions of the young gray were “not really unusual,” adding that similar occurrences have been reported in recent years in other areas of the whale migratory route from the Bering Sea to the lagoons of Baja California.

“We’re likely to see more and more in the future,” Kelly predicted. “The reason is that the gray whale population is approaching its original size (estimated at something more than 20,000 before whale-hunters decimated them) and more babies are being born” because the marine mammals now are protected by international law.

At the same time, the baby whales must learn to deal with a growing human population, especially in California, where many people go to sea in all manner of craft to get a closer look at “something about the size of an elephant swimming by,” Kelly said.

Like human infants, baby whales are “very inquisitive, and love to investigate the kelp beds, rolling over and over in them,” Kelly said, adding that he had heard about one of the young calfs seen playing in kelp while its mother waited offshore for 1 1/2 hours.