It's just that I prefer to be a fisherman than work for the factory. Murillo and his brothers have always earned their living from this isolated lagoon more than 500 miles south of San Diego. For several months a year, they supplement their incomes as whale watching tour guides. The area's riches lie in the lagoon's 65-degree water, where animals have not learned to fear humans and gray whales and dolphins gingerly approach small crafts. Scientists estimate that during migration season from January to late March as many as 300 of the world's 18,000 gray whales gather here at one time.
Females arrive to give birth, and males come to protect their mates.
Some enviromentalists say the lagoon's salinity is slightly higher than the ocean's average of 3.5 percent, helping make it a healthy nursery for whales. After a 5,000-mile migration that begins off the Alaskan coastline, expectant mothers enter the lagoon's slightly warmer waters, where they float more easily and can be assured their newborn will rise to the surface almost immediately to take its first breath. For weeks, the newborns consume only their mother's milk, a nutrient-rich liquid with 55 percent fat content. The babies gain about 50 pounds a day and build muscular strength in an area free from nets, tankers or predators. Locals insist that successive generations of whales return.