Whale Watching With a Purpose

Not much gets past Joan Venette.

From a large platform high atop a cliff on the Palos Verdes Peninsula, she enjoys a spectacular view of the Pacific Ocean.

And through powerful binoculars, she watches the ocean seven hours a day, seven days a week, for four months of the year.

“This is my home away from home,” she says.

She has seen boats capsize and others catch fire. “We even saw a plane crash once,” she adds. “The pilot and passenger climbed out onto the wings, and then the plane sank. They never did find that plane.” The pilot and passenger were rescued.

Venette might have even watched a few drug deals go down. “We see some funny things and wonder: What are these two yachts doing, and why are people getting off?” she says. “But of course, we never know.”

One thing she is sure of, though, is that she will see plenty of whales in the coming months.

It’s that time of year, when gray whales complete their 5,000-mile journey to the warm-water lagoons of Baja California.

Once there, they will give birth and nurse their calves for several weeks before beginning the long trip back to the icy Bering Sea.

Gray whales were once hunted nearly to extinction, but now number between 13,000 and 17,000, close to their historic levels.

They keep whale-watchers oohhing and aahhing , and keep landing operators in the black during the slow fishing season.

And they keep people such as Venette coming to the Point Vicente Interpretive Center day after day December through March.

She and a dozen or so others are consummate whale watchers, volunteers for the American Cetacean Society’s Gray Whale Census Project.

The purpose of the project, according to director Alisa Schulman-Janiger, is “to keep track of gray whales off this particular point and to compare that from one year to another, because it changes every year, and to look for trends.”

From their vantage point on the patio at the center, volunteers over the past decade have counted more gray whales on the northbound migration route than on the southbound route. This supports the theory that more whales prefer an offshore path on their trip to Baja and stick closer to shore on their way back.

They have learned that the “turnaround period,” when the number of northbound whales exceeds the number of southbound whales off Palos Verdes, occurs Feb. 9-15. Their peak southbound count within the last year was 16 whales on Jan. 1; and the peak northbound count was 42 on Feb. 26 and again on March 3. In one week last spring--Feb. 26 to March 4--they documented 236 whales heading north.

The whales typically wait until they reach the Baja lagoons before giving birth, but last year volunteers counted five calves accompanying their mothers south.

Many of the gray whales, a coastal species by nature, come to within easy spotting distance, even with the naked eye. It’s not uncommon to see them breeching or showing their flukes.

Some have even swum into the kelp beds immediately beneath the cliff. And though gray whales feed by plowing the sandy bottom and sifting small crustaceans through baleen plates in their mouths, a few have been seen running strands of kelp through their mouths to get the critters that live on it.

Last year, a large pod of killer whales made an unusual appearance, staying for 20 minutes and capturing the attention of everyone in the park where the interpretive center is located.

“We watched for about 20 minutes, and then they disappeared into the fog bank,” Venette says. “You can’t miss a killer whale; they’re special.”

But for serious volunteers such as Venette--many of them are senior citizens--recording details about the sightings of whales is only part of the attraction.

To them, spending time listening to the occasional bellow of the fog horn at the nearby lighthouse, watching the fog roll in and out, the gulls soaring overhead and the pelicans diving for fish, has become a healthy addiction.

“I enjoy the social aspect of it; the people who like the same things,” Venette says. “I love the peacefulness of it, the fresh air. A lot of nice people come to this park. To me it’s like a tranquilizer. And, of course, we all love the whales. That’s what we’re here for.”

Jud Goodspeed, a retired pilot who, like Venette, spends several hours every day scanning the horizon for whales, says he knows of no other place that offers such an opportunity.

“There’s no spot like it on the West Coast, that I know of, where you can come, park your car at no charge, and stay as long as you want and do something good,” he says. “It’s a good project and we’re not just looking. We’re also contributing something to the scientific field.

“We see everything that happens out there, and we have seen everything. We once saw a whale get a lobster pot [line] caught in its baleen. We told [lifeguards] and they came and saved it.”

Hugh Ryono of Fullerton comes out as often as possible and is also a volunteer at a nearby facility that cares for stranded and injured marine mammals.

“Since the day I was born, my family was involved with whales,” he says. “I’m a descendant from Japanese whalers, my dad was a San Pedro fisherman, so I’ve always been around the ocean.

“It’s kind of nice here because it’s a little bit of a change: I’m seeing whales alive, when my previous experience was seeing pictures of whales . . . dead, floating, upside down. . . .”

Ryono acknowledges that there are days when not a single gray whale is seen, particularly this early in the season. But he maintains that gazing out over the ocean is rarely dull because there is always something to see.

Risso’s dolphins and Pacific white-sided dolphins have already made appearances. Common dolphins are, well, common. Pacific bottlenose dolphins were seen on 37 days last season, Dall’s porpoises on four days.

Other whales occasionally spotted include sperm whales, blues and humpbacks.

Schulman-Janiger, who has been director of the project since 1984, held an orientation last Saturday, teaching new volunteers, among other things, how to identify all these animals.

One of the new volunteers is Teresa Moore, who with her husband, Tom, just moved to San Pedro from Washington, D.C.

“It looks like a fun hobby,” she says. “I’m a little more than four months pregnant, so I can sit down and watch the whales. . . . It’ll be pretty exciting.”

Another new volunteer is Cynde Stoll, who recently moved to Redondo Beach from Long Island.

“I’ve had a long interest in the oceans, and plus it will be neat to be able to help out,” she says. “And to sit out here is just so calm and tranquil. It’s got to be good therapy.”

Stoll’s 11-year-old son, Matthew, is also a new volunteer, whether he wants to be or not.

Asked if he had an interest in whales, he replied: “Not really, but I think I want one.”

--Prospective volunteers for the whale census project may call Alisa Schulman-Janiger at (310) 519-8963 or the Point Vicente Interpretive Center at (310) 377-5370.

FOR THE BOOKS . . .

Thomas Gutting of Moorpark said when his catch was reeled into view, “It looked like the bottom was coming up.”

Not quite, but it was one heck of a bottom dweller: a 355-pound Pacific halibut that earned Gutting a line-class world record for 80-pound test.

Gutting, 50, was fishing June 10 with Kingfisher Charters in the icy waters off Sitka, Alaska. He was informed late last month by the International Game Fish Assn. that his application for a world record was approved.

The previous line-class record was a 283-pounder. The all-tackle record is a 368-pounder caught July 6, 1991, off Gustavus, Alaska.

LOOKING BACK . . .

To just before the turn of the century on the Santa Monica waterfront. To attract shipping, in hopes of becoming the official port city of Los Angeles, the Long Wharf, a mile-long pier, was built.

It did attract shipping, as well as hundreds of pier fishermen. A settlement, dubbed “Port of Los Angeles,” was established at the base of the pier by commercial fishermen in 1905.

But 14 years later the San Pedro breakwater was built, as were docks, markets, restaurants and harbor facilities. And since a storm in 1915 had destroyed much of Long Wharf, the shift to San Pedro as the primary shipping center was swift.

About 60 Russian and Japanese fishermen remained at the Santa Monica settlement until 1919, when local landowners ordered them out. The Port of Los Angeles vanished and what was left of the wharf was removed. A pleasure pier took its place and catered to local commercial and sport fishermen.

Source: California Fishing Ports, published in 1954 by the California Department of Fish and Game.