Whale Sanctuary of El Vizcaino

Site information

• Official name: Whale Sanctuary of El Vizcaino
• Location: State of Baja California Sur, Mexico
• Type: Natural
• Year of inscription: 1993

The Whale Sanctuary of El Vizcaino is made up of two lagoons on the Pacific coast of Baja California, Laguna Ojo de Liebre (Scammon's Lagoon) and Laguna San Ignacio, along with their surrounding mangrove, marsh, and desert habitats. The lagoons are the most important breeding and calving ground for the eastern Pacific population of gray whales, a migratory species which annually travels between its winter calving grounds in Mexico and its summer feeding grounds in the north Pacific. Protection of these important sites has allowed the eastern Pacific gray whales to recover from population loss caused by the whaling industry, which exterminated Atlantic gray whales and reduced the western Pacific population to the brink of extinction. With numbers above twenty thousand, they were considered a species of least concern by the World Wildlife Fund in 2016. The World Heritage Site, located inside the much larger El Vizcaino Biosphere Reserve, also provides important habitat for other marine species and for large numbers of migratory birds. It includes 875 square miles of land around Laguna Ojo de Liebre and 550 around Laguna San Ignacio.

History

Before the arrival of commercial whaling, the eastern Pacific population of gray whales is thought to have numbered as many as one hundred thousand animals. During the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century, whalers from Europe and the United States began to hunt in the Pacific Ocean. They established on-shore fisheries along the coast of what are now California and Baja California in order to hunt the gray whales, which travel close to the shore as they move through their migration cycle. In 1855, whaling captain Charles Melville Scammon discovered the lagoon which was named for him (also known as Laguna Ojo de Liebre) and established a shore fishery from which whales could be hunted in small boats. By the 1870s, the intense hunting and attacks on whales in their nursery lagoons had depleted the populations along the coasts of Baja California and California, and by the 1890s the species was almost extinct.

Between the 1920s and 1940s a second generation of whaling again put the gray whales, which had recovered to some extent, at risk. By the early twentieth century, however, the country of Mexico had begun to adopt the whales as a national symbol, declaring them to be "Mexicanos por nacimiento" (Mexicans by birth). In 1933 Mexico recognized the Geneva Convention for the Protection of Whales, the first international convention regulating whaling, and in 1949 it joined the International Whaling Commission, which forbade the killing of gray and right whales. The population of gray whales began to rebound by the mid-1960s, and the whaling industry began to push for renewed access to the Mexican coast. Mexico chose not to allow whaling to resume, preferring instead to support the growing, locally based fishing industry and to emphasize the importance of conservation. In 1972 Laguna Ojo de Liebre was made a whale refuge by presidential decree, as was Laguna San Ignacio in 1979. In 1988 the lagoons and their surroundings were designated a Man and the Biosphere (MAB) Reserve by UNESCO, and they became a World Heritage Site in 1993.

The most significant challenge to the integrity of the site has been from the salt industry. The salt extraction company Exportadora del Sal (ES) has been active at Laguna Ojo de Liebre since the 1950s, using as much as 135 square miles (350 square km) of land for its plants and evaporation ponds. The town of Guerrero Negro was founded alongside the plant and lagoon in 1957, leading to a significant expansion of the human population in the region. In 1995 ES, at that time a joint venture of the Mexican government and Mitsubishi, announced plans to build a second salt extraction facility at Laguna San Ignacio, the only calving lagoon without industrial development. The project and its ship traffic would have had a major effect on the lagoon and the surrounding Biosphere Reserve, and the proposal was withdrawn after extensive pressure from Mexican and international conservation bodies. By the early twenty-first century, ecotourism, especially whale watching, had become an important part of the local economy. However, along with industrial development, tourism also became a potential threat to the site, due to resort development and potential disturbance of the whales.

Significance

The Whale Sanctuary of El Vizcaino was inscribed as a World Heritage Site because it provides a significant natural habitat for biodiversity (Criterion x). The site is used on a seasonal basis by eastern Pacific gray whales, the only remaining viable population of the species. Pregnant females arrive each year beginning in late December to give birth and remain at the lagoons with their calves until April or early May. Males and other females also congregate at the lagoons in order to mate. Their visits are shorter, usually during February and March. Their use of these lagoons made the whales vulnerable to hunters, but by making it easy for the survivors to find one another, may also have contributed to the unusually successful recovery of the population.

In addition to the whales, the lagoons and their coasts are used by many other marine and terrestrial species. Other marine mammals visit the lagoons and use them as nurseries, including the California sea lion, harbor seal, blue whale, bottlenose dolphin, and northern elephant seal. Endangered marine turtles, including the green, hawksbill, and loggerhead turtles, are also visitors. The mangrove forests lining the shores provide protection and breeding grounds for fish and invertebrates, supporting fisheries for local people, while the berrendo, a subspecies of pronghorn antelope living only in Baja California, can be found in the desert surrounding the lagoons. In the winter, the lagoons host a wide range of migratory birds as well as the gray whales.

Bibliography

Alter, S. Elizabeth, et al. "Pre-Whaling Genetic Diversity and Population Ecology in Eastern Pacific Gray Whales: Insights from Ancient DNA and Stable Isotopes" PLoS ONE, vol. 7, no. 5, 9 May 2012. doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0035039.

Dedina, Serge. Saving the Gray Whale: People, Politics and Conservation in Baja California. U of Arizona P, 2000.

"Gray Whale (Eschrichtius robustus)." NOAA Fisheries Office of Protected Resources. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, 2013. www.nmfs.noaa.gov/pr/species/mammals/cetaceans/graywhale.htm.

Hill, Wendy, et al. "The Ecotourism-Extraction Nexus and its Implications for the Long-Term Sustainability of Protected Areas: What is Sustained and Who Decides?" Journal of Political Ecology, vol. 23, 2016, pp. 308–27.

Whale Sanctuary of El Vizcaino. World Heritage List. World Heritage Cultural Centre, UNESCO, 2016. whc.unesco.org/en/list/554.

"Whale Sanctuary of El Vizcaino." World Heritage Outlook. International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources, 2014. www.worldheritageoutlook.iucn.org/search-sites/-/wdpaid/en/68918.