Puerto Madryn, Patagonia, Argentina
There are few places in the world where you can travel to and be sure you will see the Southern Right Whale. Come to Patagonia. Come to the Valdez Peninsula. It is here where a good number of the scarce right whales come to breed and to mate. And to calve their young! This morning we did exactly that. After tying up at the dock at Puerto Madryn, in the southern portion of Patagonia, we boarded our buses and made the trip through the scrub vegetation typical of this part of the world, where the average yearly precipitation barely reaches 8 inches. The Valdez Peninsula is has one of the few geographically important bays that right whales use to swim up to, and have it as their calving grounds. The water is quite warmer than in the Antarctic where they live during the winter months of that hemisphere. Then they make the long migration up to these more quiet and warmer waters. This is the site of the longest cetacean study ever undertaken in the world, and it is on the right whale. It is here where cetologist Roger Payne has undertaken the study of these behemoths, loaded with barnacles and callosities on their heads, making them so interesting! We took a smaller boat out to the bay, and immediately were in sight of a mother-and-calf pair, which we followed for a while. These animals are definitely not afraid of our presence, as they swam, on occasions, right up to and under the boat, blowing as they resurfaced.
After a time, we returned to the shore, where we walked up to a local restaurant and had lunch, consisting of different seafood, washed down with local beer. Then back to the buses, and off to visit an "estancia" or ranch, where sheep is the principal animal of trade. We had had to change over from our buses to four-wheel drive jeeps, as the rain from the morning had made the dirt roads impassable for the buses. Off we roared, and a short time later found ourselves walking slowly along a path that winds its way among the bushes near the ocean, under many of which the Magellanic penguins have made their burrows with nests. Here we saw them looking out of their holes, or standing or resting on the ground in the afternoon sun. They evidenced no fear of our presence, and some were approachable up to two feet. They were quite as curious as we were!
There are few places in the world where you can travel to and be sure you will see the Southern Right Whale. Come to Patagonia. Come to the Valdez Peninsula. It is here where a good number of the scarce right whales come to breed and to mate. And to calve their young! This morning we did exactly that. After tying up at the dock at Puerto Madryn, in the southern portion of Patagonia, we boarded our buses and made the trip through the scrub vegetation typical of this part of the world, where the average yearly precipitation barely reaches 8 inches. The Valdez Peninsula is has one of the few geographically important bays that right whales use to swim up to, and have it as their calving grounds. The water is quite warmer than in the Antarctic where they live during the winter months of that hemisphere. Then they make the long migration up to these more quiet and warmer waters. This is the site of the longest cetacean study ever undertaken in the world, and it is on the right whale. It is here where cetologist Roger Payne has undertaken the study of these behemoths, loaded with barnacles and callosities on their heads, making them so interesting! We took a smaller boat out to the bay, and immediately were in sight of a mother-and-calf pair, which we followed for a while. These animals are definitely not afraid of our presence, as they swam, on occasions, right up to and under the boat, blowing as they resurfaced.
After a time, we returned to the shore, where we walked up to a local restaurant and had lunch, consisting of different seafood, washed down with local beer. Then back to the buses, and off to visit an "estancia" or ranch, where sheep is the principal animal of trade. We had had to change over from our buses to four-wheel drive jeeps, as the rain from the morning had made the dirt roads impassable for the buses. Off we roared, and a short time later found ourselves walking slowly along a path that winds its way among the bushes near the ocean, under many of which the Magellanic penguins have made their burrows with nests. Here we saw them looking out of their holes, or standing or resting on the ground in the afternoon sun. They evidenced no fear of our presence, and some were approachable up to two feet. They were quite as curious as we were!
