Watch Your Whales - They're Back!

June 1st announces the start of the whale watching season. Humpbacks and southern rights can now be sighted off the New South Wales Coast as they head north to breed in warmer waters.

I've been blown away by this annual event ever since that June in 1988 when I carried out an assignment for Good Weekend magazine. It was unique not only for being a wildlife assignment (something rarely given those days) but because it introduced the general public to whales. Before then, they were almost mythical creatures. Whales were so little known, seen or understood.

Twenty three years later they are now incorporated into holidays, businesses and educational programs. They are myths in a new way, in that they now represent the mystical in our lives. Many people call the experience of seeing them a spiritual one.

I had something like that. Years ago whales would regularly beach themselves - remember that? - even on our Australia shores. People from different organizations and lifestyles would attempt to help them back into the sea. I wondered, "Why do whales do this? Why do they beach themselves as a group?" The answer came to me, through a flash of insight: "Because they're teaching us humans to shed our boundaries, our attitudes of who has authority, who is in charge, and instead work together as a single team for a common purpose."

Regardless of whether or not you agree with these metaphysical musings, you can go out and experience the spirit of whales for yourself. See if you won't come back with a new sense of exhilaration, freedom or awe.

To photograph them, you really should be in a boat. (Tip: try to get as close to water level as possible.) And do a little research first with a whale-watching guide like this one (with one of my photos on the cover). Although it's a few years old, it's been reprinted and is still quite useful.

To Kill or Not to Kill Our Whale?

The question is moot. The deed has been done. Last week, as a community, we decided to euthanase baby Colin, the whale who had come adrift from her mother, and who had been sucking the hulls of boats moored in Pittwater, one of Sydney's harbours just a couple sea miles from my house. 

What a difficult decision - yet I have trust that it will lead to a positive outcome for future orphaned whales. I think situations like this activate some sort of untapped resources in the collective conscience. Just like whale strandings once mobilized differing factions to work together to help the distressed animals, so too, efforts will be made to discover ways to feed and shelter orphaned whale calves.

Nature and wildlife photographers have an important role in these unfolding social changes. Twenty years ago this whale season, I covered the story of their migration along Australia's coast, and took some of the first photos of breachings. The front page feature in Good Weekend magazine opened a lot of eyes to the amazing life of whales. Prior to that they were virtually unknown. The story told of their amazing music, their great journey to the Barrier Reef to give birth and their majestic leaps from out of the depths. Now, whale watching is a booming tourism business and once dwindling whale numbers are steadily reversing. 

Photographers do far more than portray the spirit of nature. They have the potential for influencing the community spirit, that of cooperation, generosity and humanity. Just like beached whales are no longer, I have faith that stories of orphaned whales will have happier endings in the future.