Dr Diane Gendron: A Lifelong Friendship with Blue Whales

Dr Diane Gendron; source: Scientist Profile: Diane Gendron, SK Films, YouTube.

Whaling and Whale Watching

Whale watching is a pleasant u-turn that humanity took from the long road of centuries of whaling. The predator-prey relationship still exists between humans and whales, though whaling is banned by law in many parts of the world. On the positive side of this history, times have changed, and interests have shifted as more people want to watch whales alive rather than kill them.

Interest in blue whales, the largest known species to have inhabited Earth, has spiked. They are rare to spot because we hunted them close to extinction. Blue whales are the elusive giants of the vast ocean, but whale watchers and deep sea divers sometimes spot them and are left exhilarated by the experience. If only these rare blue whale encounters were anything close to the experiences of a woman who has spent 3 decades with the blue whales of the Gulf of California, Mexico.

Dr Diane Gendron, The Blue Whale Expert

In one of her interviews, Canadian-origin marine scientist Dr Diane Gendron reminisced about a friend asking her why she chose blue whales to study. She remembers her answer, and it was, “I didn’t choose the blue whales, they chose me.” What she meant is that her decision to dedicate her life to studying blue whales was not a clear-cut moment of career choice. She had just an idea of what she wanted to do with her life, and this idea took a concrete shape when she saw blue whales, tried to understand them, and gradually realised how little the world knew about them.

Dr Diane Gendron was born in Montreal. In 1985, she went to the Gulf of California and began to work there because she planned to study oceanography. She had many questions about whales and soon realised nobody knew much about this giant sea mammal. This was what prompted her to study the blue whales. Since then, she has lived on the coast of the Gulf of Mexico.

When she started her work on blue whales, she wanted to do something substantial to protect the gulf so that it always remains a haven for blue whales. The greatest volume of work ever done on this species arose from this passionate and sincere wish. This could be why she thinks the whales chose her.

Elin Kelsey, 2009, Watching Giants: Secret Lives of Whales

The History of Whale Hunting: A Sad Reminder of What We Are Doing to the Planet

Whaling can be traced back at least to the Middle Ages. The Norwegian Vikings hunted whales for food by driving smaller whales into what they call Fjords, the narrow sea inlets surrounded by high cliffs. They also went into the sea in boats and hunted whales using spears. The North Atlantic sea was the grand arena of these whale hunts.

Basque whalers, a Spanish ethnic group of fishermen, were also seen navigating the open sea chasing whales in small boats, but their motive was slightly different than the Vikings’. Turning whaling into commercial activity and selling whale meat, bones, skin, oil, and all other parts that went into making an array of products, they profited hugely, sharpening their whaling skills to unparalleled levels. Harpoons were used for hunting, and the whale blubber was extracted and sent to whaling stations where oil was produced.

The Japanese were another group of established whale hunters. Gradually, people of Europe and North America picked up the skills needed for this lucrative industry. An era of frenzied whaling commenced, intensifying to such an extent that by the 1700s, spotting whales in the Atlantic coastal sea became a rarity. The hunters were not going to stop ever and ventured deep into the Arctic and Antarctic oceans in search of whales. By the latter half of the 20th century, whales were on the brink of extinction and many countries, though realising this too late, woke up to ban whaling by law.

The International Whaling Commission (IWC) was formed in 1946 to limit the number of whales hunted in a year. As the quotas set by the IWC were quite generous, the hunting and killing of whales continued on an alarming scale. Finally, in 1982, the IWC announced a moratorium on whale hunting. After the moratorium, certain species of whales had a comeback from near extinction, though countries such as Norway and Japan still permit whaling. Some indigenous people, such as the Eskimos, are also allowed to hunt whales, even in countries where a ban exists.

Blue whale hunting was banned as early as the 1960s. The species faced a threat of extinction, being the largest reserve of whale oil.

Dr Gendron’s Blue Whales

Since Dr Diane Gendron had started working in the Gulf of California, every January, she ventured out into the gulf in a boat to see which blue whales swam back from the deep sea after spending time there in the winter. She was delighted to see that many of them returned to the Gulf year after year, imparting continuity to and making them valuable subjects of her study.

Through years of persevered investigation, she produced the most encyclopaedic database on blue whales.

It is no wonder that Dr Gendron Knows Each Individual Blue Whale in the Gulf.

Blue whales have pigmentation on their back, which is unique to each individual. Based on these markings, Dr Gendron, with her team, created a blue whale photo-identification catalogue. Other than the colour and markings on each whale's back, the shapes of their dorsal fins are also distinct and are documented in this catalogue. The catalogue is for the rest of the world, whereas Dr Gendron can identify each directly from even a fair distance.

Blue Whales: A Personal Connection

In an interview with Elin Kelsey for her book on whales, Dr Gendron tells this anecdote from her work: a female blue whale was numbered 250 in her catalogue. It was one of Dr Diane’s favourite blue whales. She spotted this whale thrice, every time with a new calf, and she and her team began to name the calves. The names given were the names of the three ships given to Christopher Columbus by Queen Isabella- la Santa Clara, la Pinta and la Santa Gallega. The third time, she named the mother whale, and the name she chose was, obviously, Isabella. And she joked that they would name the next calf Columbus.

Dr Grendon describes the blue whales as “very calm as the sea.” What she means by this could be fully understood only if one looks down from a helicopter at a blue whale meandering through the limitless expanse of the sea or watches from a boat a blue whale jumping, the perfect half-moon swing of its enormous body and tail, in a slow-motion somersault.

Dr Gendron also knows the exact age of many blue whales that frequent the Gulf of California. The first calves she spotted 15 or 20 years back are adults now. Many still frequent the gulf after venturing into the deep sea every winter. These whales come to the gulf only in the summer after they have spent winter somewhere else. Their breeding and birthing also happen in other parts of the ocean. Dr Gendron says there are male blue whales at least 33 years old in the Gulf because she has been spotting them, year after year, for the last 33 years.

In an interview on the Tennessee Aquarium YouTube channel, Dr Gendron explained that her research was not very high-tech. She undertook a slow investigation. But she got to know the animal profoundly. She thinks such slow and meticulous data collection has huge significance.

She reminds her viewers that to understand what is happening in the present moment, one needs to gather a lot of data from the past. However, she admits that introducing drones into her research added great value. The drone was not just for watching and photographing whales but also helped collect drops from whales' blows in a Petri dish attached.

Here are a few blue whale-watching tips that she shared in the interview: if you see a red patch of krill on the sea surface, there is a possibility that whales are around. Also, if you see whales circling the same area in the ocean, swimming deep and surfacing after each swim, it indicates that there is krill below and that they are feeding.

Dr Diane Gendron, the Blue Whale Whisperer

The blue whales are so gigantic that they might not even spot a human or a boat watching them. They are as remote as any sentient being could be away from humanity, and most of their lives are spent in the ocean's depths, away from our eyes. Still, this scientist holds them close to her heart.

Dr Diane Gendron’s research gave concrete form to our vague understanding of an animal that is magnificent and ecologically important yet quite hard to study. The huge volume of information she has gleaned over a lifetime gains new meaning as we try to protect marine ecosystems in the context of climate change.

References

Elin Kelsey, 2009, Watching Giants: Secret Lives of Whales, University of California Press.

Big Fish: A Brief History of Whaling, National Geographic.

Scientist Profile: Diane Gendron, Blue Whales: Return of the Giants, SK Films, August 1, 2023, Youtube.

Interview With Dr Diane Gendron, Marine Biologist and Star of Blue Whales- Return of the Giants, Tennessee Aquarium, Youtube.