Naturalists welcome whale season

Students with the City2Sea program gaze upon a gray whale on a whalewatching excursion last year. Photo Veteran naturalists and a handful of rookies braved biting wind and choppy seas last week to officially kick off whalewatching season. A group of nearly 100 Cabrillo Marine Aquarium volunteers, many of them wearing red jackets plastered with patches proving their worth as whalewatchers, boarded Voyager in the Redondo Beach Marina last Wednesday. They had waited an hour on the dock for word from the skipper as to whether conditions would allow for seafaring. It turns out they wouldn’t. After a short but eventful foray into the ocean open, Voyager turned back. But the naturalists, their appetites whet and their eyes bright, were bubbling over with enthusiasm for the coming season. Cabrillo Marine Aquarium Programs Director Larry Fukuhara gives a ‘dock talk’ to a group of volunteer naturalists, who are gearing up for an eventful season. Photo It does look promising. From Dec. 1 to Dec. 30, whalewatchers had spotted 151 Pacific gray whales headed south, according to a census taken by Point Vicente Interpretive Center. (To see up-to-date figures, visit www.acs-la.org/daily.htm.) For…

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