1
10
1
-
https://history.santacruzpl.org/omeka/files/original/5e1d90d7aea87d643062cac8f527d571.pdf
a7ca19da3bdf29a003dccfb9214faf85
PDF Text
Text
Whales Along the Coast of Davenport
By Alverda Orlando
From the Davenport area you can view the annual southern migration of the California gray whale. The gray whale
spends the summer in the Bering Sea feeding on small squid and krill. The whales migrate south to spend the winter in
the warm lagoons of Baja California, where they mate and have their young. It is believed that they follow a shore
current and that the kelp beds offer some protection. The migration takes place from January, when the whales are first
observed heading south, to the end of May, when the last of those heading north are seen.
The females are larger than the males. They grow to a length of about 45 feet. The young are born tail first and are from
12 to 15 feet long. As soon as the young calf is born the mother noses it to the surface so it can gets its first breath of air.
It will grow 18 feet in a year.
There are two classes of whales, those with teeth and those with baleen or whalebone. The grays belong to the latter.
They are not gray as the name would imply, but almost black with many white and gray spots like patches and many
scars. Barnacles attach themselves to their great bodies just as they do to ship's hulls and wharf piling. It is thought that
whales scrape against the rocks to remove the barnacles from their bodies.
Davenport is as close to gray whales' route as any spot along their 6,000 mile journey. They have scared many a
fisherman in small boats when they spyhop. When spyhopping, the head comes out of the water straight up about 8 or
10 feet as if they were walking on their tails. One fisherman recalls fishing off Davenport in a 12-foot boat in about 30
feet of water and when he looked up from baiting his hook wondered where that "rock" had come from. He did not see
it a few minutes earlier. The "rock" turned out to be a spyhopping gray whale who quietly surfaced.
Captain Davenport devised a plan whereby he and his men could go out from shore in a whale boat, make the kill and
tow the body back to the land station where the blubber could be removed and dried out in huge pots. This method
kept the crews with their families and proved more successful than completing the whole operation on board ships at
sea.
On January 1, 1976 the California gray whale became the state's official marine mammal. The gray whale was ordered
protected by international agreement in 1938. It is with deep sadness that this brief period came to an end in 1978. The
International Whaling Commission, meeting in London that year, removed the whale's protected designation. "Stocks
are healthy at the present time," was the reason given for the action. Annually, 178 gray whales may be killed legally.
Alaskan and Russian aborigines take the California gray whale for food. The last whaling enterprise in the United States
ended in 1971 with the closing of the station at Point San Pablo in the San Francisco Bay.
1
�Sources
Copyright 1995 Alverda Orlando. Reprinted with the permission of Alverda Orlando.
The content of this article is the responsibility of the individual author. It is the Library's intent to provide accurate local history
information. However, it is not possible for the Library to completely verify the accuracy of individual articles obtained from a
variety of sources. If you believe that factual statements in a local history article are incorrect and can provide documentation,
please contact the Webmaster.
2
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Santa Cruz History Articles
Description
An account of the resource
Original articles by library staff and by local authors and material from historical books.
Articles on Santa Cruz County history, many with illustrations, are available here.
The Santa Cruz Public Libraries is grateful to our local historians and their publishers for giving permission to include their articles. The content of the articles is the responsibility of the individual authors.
It is the library's intent to provide accurate information. However, it is not possible to completely verify the accuracy of individual articles obtained from a variety of sources. If you believe that factual statements in an article are incorrect and can provide documentation, please contact the library.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Santa Cruz Public Libraries
Document
A resource containing textual data. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre text.
Original Format
If the image is of an object, state the type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
Paper
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
AR-050
Title
A name given to the resource
Whales Along the Coast of Davenport
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Orlando, Alverda
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Santa Cruz Public Libraries
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1995
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Text
Language
A language of the resource
En
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
ARTICLE
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
Copyright 1995 Alverda Orlando. Reprinted with the permission of Alverda Orlando.
Subject
The topic of the resource
Whales and Whaling
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Davenport
Industries
Nature