Prince Hooks Up With Science for Some Spout Fishing

For the next 10 days, California gray whales are in for a royal visit. His Royal Highness Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands, an avid whale lover, has joined an expedition of cardiologists who left Point Loma on Wednesday to study the hearts of the giant mammals.

Although Bernhard, 77, is not a scientist--”I’m just going to watch and film it,” he said--he has a keen interest in conservation efforts. He founded the World Wildlife Fund, headquartered in Switzerland, 27 years ago, and he is a ferocious defender of the whale.

“I saw the animals and the animals’ habitats disappearing,” he said. “People thought I was crazy, but now most countries have ministers” for wildlife protection.

As for the whales, Bernhard said, “there needs to be a moratorium on them so that they can be left in peace for a while. Everything they are killed for can be produced artificially. Some countries say they need to catch them, but that’s bunk, absolute nonsense.”

Bernhard’s affection for the creatures was apparent as he smiled while recalling the time a killer whale kissed him on the cheek. “His skin felt like silk,” he said.

Researchers aboard the Spirit of Adventure will sail to San Ignacio Lagoon in Baja California Sur, the winter quarters for about a third of the population of gray whales, said Dr. Theodore J. Walker, a San Diego consultant for Natural History Consultants and an authority on the California gray whale. About 2,000 of the giant mammals will be packed into about 60 square miles of the lagoon.

Researchers chose the spot because frequent whale-watching expeditions have made the whales responsive to humans. Many whales come up to the boats to be petted, Walker said, and researchers hope to get close enough to conduct an electrocardiogram. They will attempt to attach a suction cup with a wire that will measure the heart rate.

The tissue of a whale’s heart is much like that of a human’s, and the cardiologists hope they will be able to learn something about the human heart, Walker said. The hearts of smaller whales and dolphins have been studied, but researchers want data from a whale that is 45 to 100 feet long.

The team of world-renowned cardiologists is headed by Dr. Frits L. Meijler of the Interuniversity Cardiology Institute of the Netherlands.

“I’ve been interested in the hearts of large mammals for a long time,” Meijler said. “I did horses and elephants, but I needed the ultimate one--a whale.”